Peace (Bleecker)
All hail vernal Phoebus! all hail ye soft breezes!
- Announcing the visit of spring;
How green are the meadows! the air how it pleases!
- How gleefully all the birds sing!
Begone ye rude tempests, nor trouble the æther,
- Nor let blushing Flora complain,
While her pencil was tinging the tulip, bad weather
- Had blasted the promising gem.
From its verdant unfoldings, the timid narcissus
- Now shoots out a diffident bud;
Begone ye rude tempests, for sure as it freezes
- Ye kill this bright child of the wood:
And Peace gives new charms to the bright beaming season;
- The groves we now safely explore
Where murd'ring banditti, the dark sons of treason,
- Were shelter'd and aw'd as before.
The swain with his oxen proceeds to the valley
- Whose seven years sabbath concludes,
And blesses kind heaven, that Britain's black ally
- Is chas'd to Canadia's deep woods.
And Echo no longer is plaintively mourning,
- But laughs and is jocund as we;
And the turtle ey'd nymphs, to their cots all returning,
- Carve 'Washington,' on every tree.
I'll wander along by the side of yon fountain,
- And drop in its current the line,
To capture the glittering fish that there wanton;
- Ah, no! 'tis an evil design.
Sport on little fishes, your lives are a treasure
- Which I can destroy, but not give;
Methinks it's at best a malevolent pleasure
- To bid a poor being not live.
How lucid the water! its soft undulations
- Are changeably ting'd by the light;
It reflects the green banks, and by fair imitations
- Presents a new heaven to sight.
The butterfly skims o'er its surface, all gilded
- With plumage just dipt in rich dies;
But yon infant has seiz'd the poor insect, ah! yield it;
- There, see the freed bird how it flies!
But whither am I and my little dog straying?
- Too far from our cottage we roam;
The dews are already exhal'd; cease your playing,
- Come, Daphne, come let us go home.
 |
This work published before January 1, 1923 is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. |
