[From The Seasons.] BIRDS, AND THEIR LOVES. WHEN first the soul of love is sent abroad Warm through the vital air, and on the heart Harmonious seizes, the gay troops begin, In gallant thought, to plume the painted wing; And try again the long-forgotten strain, At first faint-warbled. But no sooner grows The soft infusion prevalent, and wide, Than, all alive, at once their joy o'erflows In music unconfined. Upsprings the lark, Shrill-voiced, and loud, the messenger of morn; Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts Calls up the tuneful nations. Every thorny brake; Endeavoring by a thousand tricks to catch The cunning, conscious, half-averted glance Of their regardless charmer. Should she seem Softening the least approvance to bestow, Their colors burnish, and by hope inspired, They brisk advance; then, on a sudden struck, Retire disordered; then again approach; In fond rotation spread the spotted wing, And shiver every feather with desire. [From The Seasons.] DEATH AMID THE SNOWS. The mellow bullfinch answers from ALL winter drives along the dark the grove: ened air: Nor are the linnets, o'er the flower-In his own loose revolving fields, the ing furze Poured out profusely, silent. Joined to these Innumerous songsters, in the freshening shade swain Disastered stands; sees other hills ascend. Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain; Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on From hill to dale, still more and more astray; Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps, Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of home Rush on his nerves, and call their vigor forth In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul! What black despair, what horror fills his heart! When for the dusky spot, which fancy feigned His tufted cottage rising through the snow, He meets the roughness of the middle waste, Far from the track and blest abode [From Liberty.] THE ZEAL OF PERSECUTION. MOTHER of tortures! persecuting Zeal, High flashing in her hand the ready torch, Or poniard bathed in unbelieving blood; Hell's fiercest fiend! of saintly brow demure, Assuming a celestial seraph's name, While she beneath the blasphemous pretence Of pleasing Parent Heaven, the Source of Love, Has wrought more horrors, more detested deeds, Than all the rest combined! [From Liberty.] THE APOLLO, AND Venus of ALL conquest-flushed, from pros- His arm extended with the slackened bow; Light flows his easy robe, and fair displays A manly softened form. The bloom of gods Seems youthful o'er the beardless cheek to wave: His features yet, heroic ardor warms; And sweet subsiding to a native smile, Mixed with the joy elating conquest gives, A scattered frown exalts his matchless air. |