The young bird is out on his delicate pinion-- He timidly sails in the infinite sky; A greeting to May, and her fairy dominion, He pours, on the west-wind's fragrant sigh: Around, above, there are peace and pleasure-- The woodlands are singing--the heaven is bright; The fields are unfolding their emerald treasure, And man's genial spirit is soaring in light. Alas, for my weary and care-haunted bosom!-- The spells of the spring-time arouse it no more; The song in the wild-wood--the sheen of the blossom-- The fresh-welling fountain,--their magic is o'er! When I list to the streams--when I look on the flowers, They tell of the past with so mournful a tone, That I call up the throngs of my long-vanished hours, And sigh that their transports are over and gone. From the wide-spreading earth--from the limitless heaven, There have vanished an eloquent glory and gleam; To my veil'd mind no more is the influence given, Which coloureth life with the hues of a dream: The bloom-purpled landscape its loveliness keepeth-- I deem that a light as of old gilds the wave;-- But the eye of my spirit in heaviness sleepeth, Or sees but my youth, and the visions it gave. Yet it is not that age on my years hath descended-- 'Tis not that its snow-wreaths encircle my brow; But the _newness_ and sweetness of Being are ended-- I feel not their love-kindling witchery now: The shadows of death o'er my path have been sweeping-- There are those who have loved me, debarred from the day; The green turf is bright where in peace they are sleeping, And on wings of remembrance my soul is away. It is shut to the glow of this present existence-- It hears, from the past, a funereal strain; And it eagerly turns to the high-seeming distance, Where the last blooms of earth will be garnered again; Where no mildew the soft, damask-rose cheek shall nourish-- Where Grief bears no longer the poisonous sting; Where pitiless Death no dark sceptre can flourish, Or stain with his blight the luxuriant spring. It is thus, that the hopes, which to others are given, Fall cold on my heart in this rich month of May; I hear the clear anthems that ring through the heaven-- I drink the bland airs that enliven the day; And if gentle Nature, her festival keeping, Delights not my bosom, ah! do not condemn;-- O'er the lost and the lovely my spirit is weeping, For my heart's fondest raptures are buried with them. ON READING VIRGIL. BY MRS. ANN E. BLEECKER. _Written in 1778._