Classic Poem

Poets in vain have hail'd the op'ning Spring,
In tender accents woo'd the blooming maid,
In vain have taught the April birds to wing
Their flight thro' fields in verdant hue array'd.

The muse in ev'ry season taught to sing
Amidst the desert snows by fancy's powers,
Can elevated soar, on placid wing,
To climes where Spring her kindest influence showers.

April, once famous for the zephyr mild,
For sweets that early in the garden grow,
Say, how converted to this cheerless wild,
Rushing with torrents of dissolving snow?

Nurs'd by the moisture of a gentle shower,
Thy foliage oft hath sounded to the breeze;
Oft did the choristers melodious pour
Their melting numbers thro' the shady trees.

Fair have I seen thy morn, in smiles array'd,
With crimson blush bepaint the eastern sky;
But now the dawn creeps mournful o'er the glade,
Shrowded in colours of a sable dye.

So have I seen the fair with laughing eye,
And visage cheerful as the smiling morn,
Alternate changing for the heaving sigh,
Or frowning aspect of contemptuous scorn.

Life! What art thou?—a variegated scene
Of mingl'd light and shade, of joy and wo;
A sea where calms and storms promiscuous reign,
A stream where sweet and bitter jointly flow.

Mute are the plains; the shepherd pipes no more;
The reed's forsaken, and the tender flock,
While Echo, listening to the tempest's roar,
In silence wanders o'er the beetling rock.

Winter, too potent for the solar ray,
Bestride the blast, ascends his icy throne,
And views Britannia, subject to his sway,
Floating emergent on the frigid zone.

Thou savage tyrant of the fretful sky!
Wilt thou for ever in our zenith reign?
To Greenland's seas, congeal'd in chillness, fly,
Where howling monsters tread the bleak domain.

Relent, O Boreas! leave thy frozen cell;
Resign to Spring her portion of the year;
Let west winds temp'rate wave the flowing gale,
And hills, and vales, and woods a vernal aspect wear.