Spring has come! The rills, as they glisten, Sing to the pebbles and greening grass; Under the sward the violets listen, And dream of the sky as they hear her pass. Coyest of roses feel her coming, Swelling their buds with a promise to her,-- And the wild bee hears her, around them humming, And booms about with a joyous stir. Oaks, that the bark of a century covers, Feel ye the spell, as ye groan and sigh? Say,--does her spirit that round you hovers Whisper of youth and love gone by? Windows are open,--the pensive maiden Leans o'er the sill with a wistful sigh, Her heart with tender longings o'erladen, And a happy sadness, she knows not why. For we and the trees are brothers in nature;-- We feel in our veins the season's thrill In hopes that reach to a higher stature, In blind dim longings beyond our will. Whence dost thou come, O joyous spirit? From realms beyond this human ken, To paint with beauty the earth we inherit, And soften to love the hearts of men? Dear angel! that blowest with breath of gladness The trump to waken the year in its grave, Shall we not hear, after death's deep sadness, A voice as tender to gladden and save? Dost thou not sing a constant promise That joy shall follow that other voice,-- That nothing of good shall be taken from us, But all who hear it shall rise, to rejoice? RUFUS CHOATE. Mr. Choate's mind was so complex, peculiar, and original,--so foreign in temperament and spirit to the more representative traits of New England character,--so large, philosophic, and sagacious in vision and survey of great questions, and so dramatic and vehement in their exposition and enforcement,--so judicial and conservative in always maintaining in his arguments the balance and relation of interdependent principles, and so often in details marring the most exquisite poetry with the wildest extravagancies of style,--so free from mere vulgar tricks of effect, and so full of imaginative tricksiness and surprises,--so mischievous, subtle, mysterious, elusive, Protean,--that it is no wonder he has been more admired and more misunderstood than any eminent American of his time. It was because of these unaccustomed qualities of mind that matter-of-fact lawyers and judges came slowly but surely to Mr. Webster's conclusion, that he was "the most accomplished of American lawyers," whether arguing to courts or juries. In the same way, critically correct but unimaginative scholars, who "can pardon anything but a false quantity,"--who "see the hair on the rope, but not the rope," and detect minute errors, but not poetic apprehension,--admitted at last the fulness and variety of his scholastic attainments. And perhaps the finest tribute to the power and subtlety of his influence was, that, to the last, juries, who began cases by steeling themselves against it, and who ended by giving him their verdicts,