Come , sweet smiling Spring, with thy life cheering bloom,—
Why so timid and shy to appear?
No dew-dropped blossoms the morning perfume,
No green glossy garments the forests resume,
Though Time hurries by the short year.

I long for the corn-craik and cuckoo's loud notes,
T' enliven our grey hawth orn bowers;
The lightsome white lambs, as they frisk round the cots,
The seedsman's slow hum, as he scatters his oats,
Thy zephyrs and soft falling showers.

But the dark tyrant Winter, with thin hoary hair,
Breathes bleak thro' the valley and wild:
The half silent songsters forget now to pair,
They wait for thy train, but no vestige is there,
Save the primrose, thy first lonely child.

Thus mourns sad Britannia, with sorrow and tears,
For her sons that are dragg'd to afar;
She waits the nymph Peace, but, lo! what appears!—
Whole Europe convuls'd, for a series of years,
With intestine grim bloodshed and war!

So fares't with our prospects in life's early dawn,
While Hope in gay trappings is drest;
And Love link'd with Health, lightly trips o'er the land—
We gaze on the phantom, the curtain is drawn,
And the bright beams of noon overcast.