He had expected, in the quiet of his father's home and in the vicinity of his dear Lochleven, a restoration of health; but in this hope he was disappointed. The mark of death was upon him. The heart of the beauteous tree was poisoned by disease, and all its leaves faded and fell to the ground. It was under the consciousness of this fact, that he wrote his beautiful and affecting "Ode to Spring," which he sent to a dear friend to apprise him of his approaching dissolution. The following are its concluding stanzas. Now spring returns: but not to me returns The vernal joy my better years have known; Dim in my breast, life's dying taper burns, And all the joys of life with health are flown. Starting and shivering in the inconstant wind, Meagre and pale, the ghost of what I was, Beneath some blasted tree I lie reclined, And count the silent moments as they pass: The winged moments, whose unstaying speed No art can stop, or in their course arrest; Whose flight shall shortly count me with the dead, And lay me down in peace with them at rest. Oft morning dreams presage approaching fate; And morning dreams, as poets tell, are true; Led by pale ghosts, I enter Death's dark gate, And bid the realms of light and life adieu. I hear the helpless wail, the shriek of wo; I see the muddy wave, the dreary shore, The sluggish streams that slowly sleep below, Which mortals visit, and return no more. Farewell, ye blooming fields! ye cheerful plains! Enough for me the church-yard's lonely mound, Where melancholy with still silence reigns, And the rank grass waves o'er the cheerless ground. There let me wander at the shut of eve, When sleep sits dewy on the laborer's eyes; The world and all its busy follies leave, And talk with Wisdom where my Daphne lies. There let me sleep, forgotten in the clay, When death shall shut these weary, aching eyes; Rest in the hopes of an eternal day, Till the long night is gone, and the last morn arise. He intimated his approaching death to another friend, in prose, as affecting as his poetry, and if possible, more instructive.