TO HONORA SNEYD[1], WHOSE HEALTH WAS ALWAYS BEST IN WINTER.
And now the youthful, gay, capricious Spring, Piercing her showery clouds with crystal light, And with their hues reflected streaking bright Her radiant bow, bids all her Warblers sing; The Lark, shrill caroling on soaring wing; The lonely Thrush, in brake, with blossoms white, That tunes his pipe so loud; while, from the sight Coy bending their dropt heads, young Cowslips fling Rich perfume o'er the fields.--It is the prime Of Hours that Beauty robes:--yet all they gild, Cheer, and delight in this their fragrant time, For thy dear sake, to me less pleasure yield Than, veil'd in sleet, and rain, and hoary rime, Dim Winter's naked hedge and plashy field.
TO A FRIEND, WHO THINKS SENSIBILITY A MISFORTUNE.
Ah, thankless! canst thou envy him who gains The Stoic's cold and indurate repose? Thou! with thy lively sense of bliss and woes!-- From a false balance of life's joys and pains Thou deem'st him happy.--Plac'd 'mid fair domains, Where full the river down the valley flows, As wisely might'st thou wish thy home had rose On the parch'd surface of unwater'd plains, For that, when long the heavy rain descends, Bursts over guardian banks their whelming tide!-- Seldom the wild and wasteful Flood extends, But, spreading plenty, verdure, beauty wide, The cool translucent Stream perpetual bends, And laughs the Vale as the bright waters glide.
WRITTEN AT LICHFIELD, IN AN EASTERN APARTMENT OF THE BISHOP'S PALACE, WHICH COMMANDS A VIEW OF STOW VALLEY.
In this chill morning of a wintry Spring I look into the gloom'd and rainy vale; The sullen clouds, the stormy winds assail, Lour on the fields, and with impetuous wing Disturb the lake:--but Love and Memory cling To their known scene, in this cold influence pale; Yet priz'd, as when it bloom'd in Summer's gale, Ting'd by his setting sun.--When Sorrows fling, Or slow Disease, thus, o'er some beauteous Form Their shadowy languors, Form, devoutly dear As thine to me, HONORA, with more warm And anxious gaze the eyes of Love sincere Bend on the charms, dim in their tintless snow, Than when with health's vermilion hues they glow.
By Derwent's rapid stream as oft I stray'd, With Infancy's light step and glances wild, And saw vast rocks, on steepy mountains pil'd, Frown o'er th' umbrageous glen; or pleas'd survey'd The cloudy moonshine in the shadowy glade, Romantic Nature to th' enthusiast Child Grew dearer far than when serene she smil'd, In uncontrasted loveliness array'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 midnight glooms prevail, And softest Silence broods o'er all the dale.