Poems (Toke)/Spring

by Emma Toke

For works with similar titles, see Spring.

SPRING.

PRING bursts upon the waking earth;
 Her voice resounds o'er wood and plain
And Nature, starting to new birth,,
 Glows with the blush of youth again.
The fairest daughter of the year
 Bounds on her rosy path the while,
With hope in every passing tear,
 And joy in every sunny smile,

Life breathes upon the world once more;
 Her mighty heart again throbs high;
And bursting leaf, and waking flower,
 Proclaim she slept, but could not die,
Each breath upon the scented gale,
 Each sound upon the balmy air,
Seems but to tell one stirring tale,
 That life, bright, glorious life, is there!

Oh! loveliest season! joy and light
 Seem borne upon thy sunny wing;
No flowers, save those of hues most bright,
 Should cluster round the brow of Spring.
And if the mournful heart still feels
 That joyful voice but mocks its gloom,
Yet hope amid dejection steals,
 And whispers of bright hours to come.

Why is it that such cheering power,
 Such gladness, floats upon thy smile?
It is thou art the childhood hour,
 The youth that Nature lives awhile;
And though, like man's bright vernal morn,
 Too soon thy lustre fades away,
Yet still, like his, can ne'er return
 The freshness of thine early day.

No; Summer suns more bright may shine
 O'er lovelier hues, when thine are sere,
And Autumn's thousand tints may twine
 With gorgeous grief the dying year;
Jut never can their fairest hours
 Revive the feelings thou canst raise,
The freshness of thy simple flowers,
 The magic of thy changeful days.

And who can gaze on this fair earth,
 All rife with sights and sounds of Spring,
The bursting leaves, the flowers' new birth,
 The joyous "birds upon the wing,"
Nor feel that these fair things were made
 To cheer man's pilgrimage below,—
Gently to soothe life's hours of shade,
 And soften its meridian glow?

Look forth, then, with no careless eye,
 On all so bright beneath, above,
And read thou, in the laughing sky,
 A lesson of eternal love.
Oh gaze upon the faithful year,
 Bright in returning beauty shine,
And learn to trust the ceaseless care
 That guides earth's changing course, and thine.

E.

May, 1839.