Sonnets, and Miscellaneous Poems

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. TO THE WINTER ACONITE. How sweet it is an unexpected pledge Of friendship to receive in some dull hour, When Hope has vanished, and misfortunes lour; And we stand trembling on their beetling ledge ! Even such art thou, thou little golden wedge! Blooming so sweetly in the nipping blast, The earth all frozen, and the sky o'ercast, And mute the robin on the leafless hedge. The dreariest day that dawns, the darkest night, Have something in them still to cheer the heart, Which like this simple floweret may impart Both present joy, and hopes of things more bright; For art thou not the firstling of the Spring, And herald of delights she soon will bring ? chapter{Section 4IV. TO THE SNOWDROP. Ere yet stern Winter from the lawn does lift His cold white sheet, and ere one warbler sings, The hard sod piercing, up the Snowdrop springs, Of the short glimpse of sunshine making thrift; Flora's first bantling, cradled in the drift. All welcome thee, sweet Floweret! for thyself, And as Spring's harbinger; but with vile pelf Engrossed, few mark the beauties of the gift. All know thy bud immaculate as snow, But few the pencilings delicate of green Within thy chalice; and still fewer know, That like affection, sometimes cold in mien When coldly met, sweet fragrance thou dost yield At the fireside, though none in the cold field. chapter{Section 5V, THE APPROACH OF SPRING. But yesterday the fields were frozen round, The hills sat cowering 'neath their burdens cold, Asking if Spring was never to unfold, ? If Boreas' trumpet would for ever sound. But now the Sun leaps forward with a bound; Things yield to gentle influence that did mock Rude force, and the persistent leaves of oak And russet beech come rustling to the ground. Cracks the pel..