XVIII. TO HONORA SNEYD*, WHOSE HEALTH WAS ALWAYS BEST IN WINTER. "AND now the youthful, gay, capricious SPRING, The lonely Thrush, in brake with blossoms white, Than veil'd in sleet and rain, and hoary rime Dun WINTER'S naked hedge, and plashy field." XIX. EARLY FONDNESS FOR THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE HOW FORM'D. "BY Derwent's rapid stream as oft I stray'd But O, in every scene with sacred sway Her Graces fire me: from the bloom that spreads Resplendent in the lucid morn of May, To the green light the little Glow-worm sheds On mossy banks, when mid-night glooms prevail And softest silence broods o'er all the dale." SEWARD. (VII.) XX. WRITTEN ON RISING GROUND NEAR LICHFIELD. "THE Evening shines in May's luxuriant pride: And all the sunny hills at distance glow, And all the brooks that through the valley flow Seem liquid gold. O, had my Fate denied Leisure, and power to taste the sweets that glide Through waken'd Minds as the soft seasons go On their still varying progress, for the woe My Heart has felt what balm had been supplied? But where great NATURE smiles, as here she smiles, 'Mid vernal lakes, and gently swelling hills, And glassy lakes, and mazy murmuring rills, And narrow wood-wild lanes,-her spell beguiles The impatient sighs of Grief; and reconciles Poetic Minds to Life with all her ills." SEWARD, (XV.) XXI. PETRARCH TO VAUCLUSE. "FORTUNATE VALE! exulting hill, dear plain, Around her limbs in summer's ardent reign, The soft resplendence of those azúre eyes Ting'd ye with living light.-The envied claim These blest distinctions give, my Lyre, my sighs, My Songs record, and from their Poet's flame Bid thy wild vale, its rocks and streams arise, Associates still of their bright Mistress' fame. SEWARD. (XXV.) XXII. ON THE FUNERAL OF AN AMIABLE YOUNG PERSON. "DARK as the silent stream, beneath the night Each Grace of Youth's gay morn that charms our sight gloom Insensate! ghastly! for the yawning Tomb, Alas! fit inmate. Thus we mourn the blight, Of virgin Beauty, and Endowments rare, In their gay hours of promise. O, when Age Drops, like the o'er-blown, faded Rose, though dear Its long-known worth, no stormy sorrows rage; But swell, when we behold, unsoil'd by time, Youth's broken Lily perisht in its prime." SEWARD. (XLVI.) |