THE BIRTHDAY OF SPRING.

CRY Holiday! Holiday! let us be gay,

And share in the rapture of heaven and earth; For see! what a sunshiny joy they display,

To welcome the Spring on the day of her birth; While the elements, gladly outpouring their voice, Nature's Pean proclaim, and in chorus rejoice!

Loud carols each rill as it leaps in its bed;

The wind brings us music and balm from the south,

And Earth in delight calls on Echo to spread

The tidings of joy with her many-tongued mouth; O'er sea and o'er shore, over mountain and plain, Far, far does she trumpet the jubilee strain.

Hark! hark to the cuckoo! its magical call

Awakens the flowerets that slept in the dells; The snow-drop, the primrose, the hyacinth, all Attune at this summons their silvery bells. Hush! ting-a-ring-ting! don't you hear how they sing! They are pealing a fairy-like welcome to Spring.

The love-thrilling hedge-birds are wild with delight; Like arrows loud whistling the swallows flit by;

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The rapturous lark, as he soars out of sight,

Sends us sun-lighted melody down from the sky. In the air that they quaff, all the feathery throng Taste the spirit of Spring that out-bursts in a song.

To me do the same vernal whisperings breathe

In all that I scent, that I hear, that I meet, Without and within me, above and beneath,

Every sense is imbued with a prophecy sweet Of the pomp and the pleasantness Earth shall assume When adorn'd, like a bride, in her flowery bloom.

In this transport of nature each feeling takes part;

I am thrilling with gratitude, reverence, joy;

A new spring of youth seems to gush from my heart,

And the man's metamorphosed again to a boy. Oh! let me run wild, as in earlier years;

If my joy be suppress'd, I shall burst into tears.

AN OLD MAN'S ASPIRATION.

O GLORIOUS Sun! whose car sublime
Unerring since the birth of time,

In glad magnificence hath run its race;—
O day's delight—God-painted sky,

O moon and stars, whose galaxy

Illuminates the night thro' all the realms of space.

O poetry of forms and hues,

Resplendent Earth! whose varied views

In such harmonious beauty are combined;—

And thou, O palpitating Sea,

Who holdest this fair mystery

In the wide circle of thy thrilling arms enshrined,—

Hear me, Oh hear while I impart

The deep conviction of my heart, That such a theatre august and grand,

Whose author, actors, awful play,

Are God, mankind, a judgment day,

Was for some higher aim, some holier purpose plann'd.

I will not, nay I cannot, deem

This fair Creation's moral scheme,

So will the world, I fondly hope,

With added years give fuller scope

To the display and love of wisdom, justice, truth.