Classic Poem

Ah! why, unfeeling Winter , why
Still flags thy torpid wing?
Fly, melancholy Season, fly,
And yield the year to Spring .

Spring, — the young harbinger of love,
An exile in disgrace, —
Flits o'er the scene, like N OAH'S dove,
Nor finds a resting-place.

When on the mountain's azure peak
Alights her fairy form,
Cold blow the winds, — and dark and bleak
Around her rolls the storm.

If to the valley she repair
For shelter and defence,
Thy wrath pursues the mourner there,
And drives her, weeping, thence.

She seeks the brook, the faithless brook,
Of her unmindful grown,
Feels the chill magic of thy look,
And lingers into stone.

She wooes her embryo-flowers in vain
To rear their infant heads; —
Deaf to her voice, her flowers remain
Enchanted in their beds.

In vain she bids the trees expand
Their green luxuriant charms; —
Bare in the wilderness they stand,
And stretch their withering arms.

Her favourite birds, in feeble notes,
Lament thy long delay;
And strain their little stammering throats
To charm thy blasts away.

Ah! Winter , calm thy cruel rage,
Release the struggling year;
Thy power is past, decrepit Sage,
Arise and disappear.

The stars that graced thy splendid night
Are lost in warmer rays;
The Sun, rejoicing in his might,
Unrolls celestial days.

Then why, usurping Winter , why
Still flags thy frozen wing?
Fly, unrelenting tyrant, fly —
And yield the year to Spring .