HAIL harbinger of spring!
Already on the wing,
Humming thy lengthen’d notes along the vale;
Saluting ev’ry flower,
In this delightful hour,
The modest cowslip and the primrose pale.
Just so our course we steer,
In youth’s expanding year,
Culling fresh sweets from ev’ry flower that blows;
Nor briars obstruct our way,
For ever brisk and gay,
Heedless of ev’ry thorn we pluck the rose.
Yet not like thee we treasure,
The fruit of early pleasure,
Against approaching winter’s desert reign;
Ours is the heedless joy,
Which summer shall destroy,
Proving youth’s early season spent in vain.
So when increasing time,
Destroys fair manhood’s prime,
And wastes the glory of the genial spring;
Conscience shall wake at last,
And rous’d by winter’s blast,
Shall look severe, and point th’ envenom’d sting.
Let each improve his hour,
While means are in his power,
And life fresh opening on the mind of youth;
Let us the time employ,
In storing future joy,
And hear the dictates of eternal truth.
(Elizabeth Bath)
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