A Day in Spring / Richard Westall (XIV)

A Day in Spring

XIV

Through the garden now we'll range;
View its sweets and mark their change;
Beauteous fav'rites of a day!
Oh! how sweet the breath of May!
Oh! how rich her form appears,
Bounteous smiling thro' her tears,
As the day-star riding high,
Clears the lately clouded sky!
— Never let my banks be free,
From the flaunting piony;
Or the flower that bears the name
Of the never dying flame;
Or the tulip's pencil'd bell,
Or the pink, with spicy smell:
While beside them lovely grows
Flora's pride, the mossy rose,
And the lily's breast of snow
Blends the heaven-tinctur'd glow:
Let the hollyhock be nigh,
Deeply steep'd in purple dye;
I delight to see him drest
In his dark imperial vest,
Branching wide, and waving loose,
Drunk he seems with Tyrian juice.

~~

Read the rest of the poem here

Richard Westall (1765-1836)

from A Day in Spring, and other poems, 1808

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Richard Westell biography