At last young April, ever frail and fair, Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair, Chased to the margin of receding floods O'er the soft meadows starred with opening buds, In tears and blushes sighs herself away, And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May. Then the proud tulip lights her beacon blaze, Her clustering curls the hyacinth displays; O'er her tall blades the crested fleur-de-lis, Like blue-eyed Pallas, towers erect and free; With yellower flames the lengthened sunshine glows, And love lays bare the passion-breathing rose; Queen of the lake, along its reedy verge The rival lily hastens to emerge, Her snowy shoulders glistening as she strips, Till morn is sultan of her parted lips. Then bursts the song from every leafy glade, The yielding season's bridal serenade; Then flash the wings returning Summer calls Through the deep arches of her forest halls,-- The bluebird, breathing from his azure plumes The fragrance borrowed where the myrtle blooms; The thrush, poor wanderer, dropping meekly down, Clad in his remnant of autumnal brown; The oriole, drifting like a flake of fire Rent by a whirlwind from a blazing spire. The robin, jerking his spasmodic throat, Repeats, imperious, his staccato note; The crack-brained bobolink courts his crazy mate, Poised on a bulrush tipsy with his weight; Nay, in his cage the lone canary sings, Feels the soft air, and spreads his idle wings. Why dream I here within these caging walls, Deaf to her voice, while blooming Nature calls; Peering and gazing with insatiate looks Through blinding lenses, or in wearying books? Off, gloomy spectres of the shrivelled past! Fly with the leaves that fill the autumn blast Ye imps of Science, whose relentless chains Lock the warm tides within these living veins, Close your dim cavern, while its captive strays Dazzled and giddy in the morning's blaze! THE STUDY YET in the darksome crypt I left so late, Whose only altar is its rusted grate,-- Sepulchral, rayless, joyless as it seems, Shamed by the glare of May's refulgent beams,-- While the dim seasons dragged their shrouded train, Its paler splendors were not quite in vain. From these dull bars the cheerful firelight's glow Streamed through the casement o'er the spectral snow; Here, while the night-wind wreaked its frantic will On the loose ocean and the rock-bound hill, Rent the cracked topsail from its quivering yard, And rived the oak a thousand storms had scarred, Fenced by these walls the peaceful taper shone, Nor felt a breath to slant its trembling cone.