What joys ecstatic must thou there inherit, Buoyant and free, from age to age aspiring, To regions near, or far transcending thought, Oh bliss unmingled beyond bounds or measure! Of this vile, sin-polluted world. With pleasure TO A SNOWDROP. GAIN the opening year I sing, Hail, lovely harbinger of Spring! Emerging from thy tomb again, Precursor of the floral train, Thou seem'st impatient of delay, Come, welcome stranger, come away. Thy spotless robes of snowy white, How doubly grateful to the sight! What intellect, what art, and power Are miniatured in thee, sweet flower, To all proclaiming, as they shine, An Artist glorious and divine ? Unlike the rude attempts of man, The closer we thy structure scan, The more thy symmetry and grace, And native loveliness, we trace, And feel the soul instinctive rise With admiration and surprise At thy revival from the dust, O hallowed emblem of the just! In robes unborrowed though attired, And by no toil of thine acquired. Yet, ah! fair gem, thy charms deride The garish glare of human pride: And how obscure thou lov'st to bloom, With drooping head, here o'er thy tomb! Young, unassuming modest birth, But, ah! frail evanescent thing, Of man, e'en in his best estate- But when shall Spring dawn on the urn? There must its tenants slumbering lie Till Time, and Death, and nature die— Till the last trumpet, loud and shrill, Shall rouse us with its awful thrill. A FEW SHORT YEARS. FEW short years, and then, As dew-drops from the spray, So from the ranks of men, Anon, we pass away. Bright type of our career, What matters here our lot— Doomed but to pass away. Though thorns our path bestrew, Though ills on ills renew, 'Tis but to pass away. What honour, fame, and power The syrens of an hour, That dream like pass away, |