_At last young April, ever frail and fair,_ _Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair,_ _Chased to the margin of receding floods_ _O’er the soft meadows starred with opening buds,_ _In tears and blushes sighs herself away,_ _And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May._ Then the proud tulip lights her beacon blaze, Her clustering curls the hyacinth displays, O’er her tall blades the crested fleur-de-lis, _Like blue-eyed Pallas_, towers erect and free; With yellower flames the lengthened sunshine glows, _And love lays bare the passion-breathing rose_; Queen of the lake, along its reedy verge The rival lily hastens to emerge, Her snowy shoulders glistening as she strips _Till morn is sultan of her parted lips_. We have not space for what follows in celebration of the birds, though we cannot resist the temptation to extract four intoxicating couplets: The thrush, poor wanderer, drooping meekly down, Clad in his remnant of autumnal brown; The oriole, drifting like a flake of fire Rent by the whirlwind from a blazing spire. The robin, jerking his spasmodic throat, Repeats, _staccato_, his peremptory note; The _crack-brained_ bobolink courts his crazy mate, Poised on a bulrush _tipsy_ with his weight. The satirical part of the poem is introduced with a few lines on the danger of meddling with popular delusions and foibles; and after speaking of the “earthquake of a nation’s hiss,” he concludes with this saucy salutation to the newspapers: And oh, remember the indignant press; Honey is bitter to its fond caress, But the black venom that its hate lets fall Would shame to sweetness the hyena’s gall. The gem of this portion of the poem is the representation of the Moral Bully, a picture worthy of Pope or Young: