The far-famed nightingale, that shares Cold public praise from every tongue, The popular voice of music heirs, And injures much thy under-song: Yet then my walks thy theme salutes; I find thee autumn’s favoured guest, Gay piping on the hazel-roots Above thy mossy nest. ’Tis wrong that thou shouldst be despised, When these gay fickle birds appear; They sing when summer flowers are prized-- Thou at the dull and dying year. Well! let the heedless and the gay Bepraise the voice of louder lays, The joy thou steal’st from Sorrow’s day Is more to thee than praise. And could my notes win aught from thine, My words but imitate thy lay, Time could not then his charge resign, Nor throw the meanest verse away, But ever at this mellow time, He should thy autumn praise prolong, As they would share the happy prime Of thy eternal song. A SPRING MORNING The Spring comes in with all her hues and smells, In freshness breathing over hills and dells; O’er woods where May her gorgeous drapery flings, And meads washed fragrant by their laughing springs. Fresh are new opened flowers, untouched and free From the bold rifling of the amorous bee. The happy time of singing birds is come, And Love’s lone pilgrimage now finds a home; Among the mossy oaks now coos the dove, And the hoarse crow finds softer notes for love. The foxes play around their dens, and bark In joy’s excess, ’mid woodland shadows dark. The flowers join lips below; the leaves above; And every sound that meets the ear is Love. THE CRAB-TREE Spring comes anew, and brings each little pledge That still, as wont, my childish heart deceives; I stoop again for violets in the hedge, Among the ivy and old withered leaves; And often mark, amid the clumps of sedge, The pooty-shells I gathered when a boy: But cares have claimed me many an evil day, And chilled the relish which I had for joy. Yet when Crab-blossoms blush among the May, As erst in years gone by, I scramble now Up ’mid the bramble for my old esteems, Filling my hands with many a blooming bough; Till the heart-stirring past as present seems, Save the bright sunshine of those fairy dreams. WINTER