Classic Poem

I wander'd in a lonely glade,
Where, issuing from the forest shade,
A little mountain stream
Along the winding valley play'd,
Beneath the morning beam.

Light o'er the woods of dark brown oak
The west-wind wreathed the hovering smoke,
From cottage roofs conceal'd,
Below a rock abruptly broke,
In rosy light reveal'd.

'Twas in the infancy of May,—
The uplands glow'd in green array,
While from the ranging eye
The lessening landscape stretch'd away,
To meet the bending sky.

'Tis sweet in solitude to hear
The earliest music of the year,
The Blackbird's loud wild note,
Or, from the wintry thicket drear,
The Thrush's stammering throat.

In rustic solitude 'tis sweet
The earliest flowers of Spring to greet,—
The violet from its tomb,
The strawberry, creeping at our feet,
The sorrel's simple bloom.

Wherefore I love the walks of Spring,—
While still I hear new warblers sing,
Fresh-opening bells I see;
Joy flits on every roving wing,
Hope buds on every tree.

That morn I look'd and listen'd long,
Some cheering sight, some woodland song,
As yet unheard, unseen,
To welcome, with remembrance strong
Of days that once had been;—

When gathering flowers, an eager child,
I ran abroad with rapture wild;
Or, on more curious quest,
Peep'd breathless through the copse, and smiled,
To see the linnet's nest.

Already had I watch'd the flight
Of swallows darting through the light,
And mock'd the cuckoo's call;
Already view'd, o'er meadows bright,
The evening rainbow fall.

Now in my walk, with sweet surprise,
I saw the first Spring cowslip rise,
The plant whose pensile flowers
Bend to the earth their beauteous eyes,
In sunshine as in showers.

Lone on a mossy bank it grew,
Where lichens, purple, white, and blue,
Among the verdure crept;
Its yellow ringlets, dropping dew,
The breezes lightly swept.

A bee had nestled on its blooms,
He shook abroad their rich perfumes,
Then fled in airy rings;
His place a butterfly assumes,
Glancing his glorious wings.

O, welcome, as a friend! I cried;
A friend through many a season tried,
Nor ever sought in vain,
When May, with Flora at her side,
Is dancing on the plain.

Sure as the Pleiades adorn
The glittering coronet of morn,
In calm delicious hours,
Beneath their beams thy buds are born,
'Midst love-awakening showers.

Scatter'd by Nature's graceful hand,
In briary glens, o'er pasture-land,
Thy fairy tribes we meet;
Gay in the milk-maid's path they stand,
They kiss her tripping feet.

From winter's farm-yard bondage freed,
The cattle bounding o'er the mead,
Where green the herbage grows,
Among thy fragrant blossoms feed,
Upon thy tufts repose.

Tossing his forelock o'er his mane,
The foal, at rest upon the plain,
Sports with thy flexile stalk,
But stoops his little neck in vain
To crop it in his walk.

Where thick thy primrose blossoms play,
Lovely and innocent as they,
O'er coppice lawns and dells,
In bands the rural children stray,
To pluck thy nectar'd bells;

Whose simple sweets, with curious skill,
The frugal cottage-dames distil,
Nor envy France the vine,
While many a festal cup they fill
With Britain's homely wine.

Unchanging still from year to year,
Like stars returning in their sphere,
With undiminish'd rays,
Thy vernal constellations cheer
The dawn of lengthening days.

Perhaps from Nature's earliest May,
Imperishable 'midst decay,
Thy self-renewing race
Have breathed their balmy lives away
In this neglected place.

And O, till Nature's final doom,
Here unmolested may they bloom,
From scythe and plough secure,
This bank their cradle and their tomb,
While earth and skies endure!

Yet, lowly Cowslip, while in thee
An old unalter'd friend I see,
Fresh in perennial prime;
From Spring to Spring behold in me
The woes and waste of Time.

This fading eye and withering mien
Tell what a sufferer I have been,
Since more and more estranged,
From hope to hope, from scene to scene,
Through Folly's wilds I ranged.

Then fields and woods I proudly spurn'd;
From Nature's maiden love I turn'd,
And wooed the enchantress Art;
Yet while for her my fancy burn'd,
Cold was my wretched heart,—

Till, distanced in Ambition's race,
Weary of Pleasure's joyless chase,
My peace untimely slain,
Sick of the world,——I turn'd my face
To fields and woods again.

'Twas Spring;—my former haunts I found,
My favourite flowers adorn'd the ground,
My darling minstrels play'd;
The mountains were with sunset crown'd,
The valleys dun with shade.

With lorn delight the scene I view'd,
Past joys and sorrows were renew'd;
My infant hopes and fears
Look'd lovely, through the solitude
Of retrospective years.

And still, in Memory's twilight bowers,
The spirits of departed hours,
With mellowing tints, portray
The blossoms of life's vernal flowers
For ever fall'n away.

Till youth's delirious dream is o'er,
Sanguine with hope, we look before,
The future good to find;
In age when error charms no more,
For bliss we look behind.