Old January, clad in crispy rime, Comes limping on, and often makes a stand; The hasty snow-storm ne’er disturbs his time, He mends no pace, but beats his dithering hand. And February, like a timid maid, Smiling and sorrowing follows in his train; Huddled in cloak, of miry roads afraid, She hastens on to meet her home again. Then March, the prophetess, by storms inspired, Gazes in rapture on the troubled sky, And now in headlong fury madly fired, She bids the hail-storm boil and hurry by. Yet ’neath the blackest cloud, a Sunbeam flings Its cheering promise of returning Springs. OLD POESY Sweet is the poesy of the olden time, In the unsullied infancy of rhyme, When Nature reigned omnipotent to teach, And Truth and Feeling owned the powers of speech. Rich is the music of each early theme, And sweet as sunshine in a summer dream, Giving to stocks and stones, in rapture’s strife, A soul of utterance and a tongue of life. Sweet are these wild flowers in their disarray, Which Art and Fashion fling as weeds away, To sport with shadows of inferior kind, Mere magic-lanthorns of the shifting mind, Automatons of wonder-working powers, Shadows of life, and artificial flowers. ’TIS SPRING, MY LOVE, ’TIS SPRING ’Tis Spring, my love, ’tis Spring, And the birds begin to sing: If ’t was Winter, left alone with you, Your bonny form and face, Would make a Summer place, And be the finest flower that ever grew. Tis Spring, my love, ’tis Spring, And the hazel catkins hing, While the snowdrop has its little blebs of dew; But that’s not so white within As your bosom’s hidden skin-- That sweetest of all flowers that ever grew. The sun arose from bed, All strewn with roses red, But the brightest and the loveliest crimson place Is not so fresh and fair, Or so sweet beyond compare, As thy blushing, ever smiling, happy face. I love Spring’s early flowers, And their bloom in its first hours, But they never half so bright or lovely seem As the blithe and happy grace Of my darling’s blushing face, And the happiness of loves young dream. GRAVES OF INFANTS Infants’ gravemounds are steps of angels, where Earth’s brightest gems of innocence repose. God is their parent, so they need no tear; He takes them to his bosom from earth’s woes, A bud their lifetime and a flower their close. Their spirits are the Iris of the skies, Needing no prayers; a sunset’s happy close. Gone are the bright rays of their soft blue eyes; Flowers weep in dew-drops o’er them, and the gale gently sighs.