And what if thou, sweet May, hast known Have perished in thy sight; If loves and joys, while up they sprung, Were caught as in a snare ; Such is the lot of all the young, However bright and fair. Lo! streams that April could not check By thee, thee only, could be sent How delicate the leafy veil Through which yon House of God No sooner stand attired In thy fresh wreaths, than they for praise Peep forth, and are admired. Season of fancy and of hope, Permit not for one hour A blossom from thy crown to drop, Keep, lovely May, as if by touch Of self-restraining art, This modest charm of not too much, THE PRIMROSE OF THE ROCK. A Rock there is whose homely front Yet there the glow-worms hang their lamps, And one coy Primrose to that Rock The vernal breeze invites. What hideous warfare hath been waged, What kingdoms overthrown, Since first I spied that Primrose-tuft And marked it for my own; A lasting link in Nature's chain The flowers, still faithful to the stems, The stems are faithful to the root, Close clings to earth the living rock, So blooms this lonely Plant, nor dreads Here closed the meditative strain ; But air breathed soft that day, The hoary mountain-heights were cheered, I gave this after-lay. I sang-Let myriads of bright flowers, Is God's redeeming love; That love which changed-for wan disease, For sorrow that had bent O'er hopeless dust, for withered age Their moral element, And turned the thistles of a curse To types beneficent. Sin-blighted though we are, we too, The reasoning Sons of Men, From one oblivious winter called Shall rise, and breathe again; And in eternal summer lose Our threescore years and ten. To humbleness of heart descends And makes each soul a separate heaven, |