Spring: An ode
And now, obedient to divine command,
Reluctant winter yields his rigid reign;
Exulting Nature breaks his cruel band,
And welcomes Flora to her old domain;
She from her chariot strews ambrosial flowers;
'Tis she, that decks the vales, and renovates the bowers.
The pendent icicle perceives the thaw,
Then quits the straw-roof'd cot, and melts away;
The snow beholds, and hastens to withdraw,
But loses first its innocent array:
Assuming now, a robe of murky hue
More soil'd, as more receding from our view.
Ice in its northern magazine lies chain'd,
And all the furious hurricanes are bound;
Zephyr, by Eurus fierce too long restrain'd,
Now claps his pinions at the joyful sound;
The gentle shower descends; earth opens wide
Her jaws, and thirsty sucks the copious tide.
The glorious sun with vegetative powers
Endues the air, resolving to unchain
The willing world, while in his noon-tide hours:
Well knowing, that his sister Queen again,
When she resum'd her silver throne, would freeze
The brooks and rills, and hardly spare the seas.
And now alternate, what bright Phoebus thaws
By day, by night the Queen of shade congeals:
Nature, subservient to discordant laws,
In all her springs the dire commotion feels:
The bud, that noon-tide suns inspir'd to rise,
Lies dead at evening, chill'd by frosty skies.
Mid the confusion, whilst we scarce can tell
If winter stays or flies, the snow-drop rears
Her humid head, and fills each drooping bell
With incense pure and odoriferous tears:
Safe in its native innocence it stands,
Nor dreads keen Boreas, nor the wintry bands.
Yet, but a herald to the crocus proud,
Who peers a King in golden arms array'd,
Around him daffodils and violets crowd,
And primroses dear to the wood-land maid;
Succeeded quickly by a thousand flowers,
All that delight in meadows, hills, and bowers.
Behold, the elm puts on its dark array
Of dusky green; forth shoots the alder dun;
In the light breeze the leaves of aspin play;
The bushy sycamore desires the sun;
And last, as if the sylvan band to close,
The regal oak his ample foliage shows.
But see, the young creation is awake;
The household bee forsakes her waxen cell;
The finny nations wanton in the lake;
The gentle birds their pleasing descants tell;
The lordly steed indignant paws the ground;
And o'er green thymy banks the lambkins bound.
And now the etherial ram the zenith leaves,
The ram of old surcharg'd with Helle's fate;
This, the proud bull, his rival stern, perceives,
And issue forth in all his radiant state,
He bends his starry horns, enwreath'd with light,
As if to rend the dusky veil of night.
The blessed sun his beams benignly pours
On the glad earth, and bids creation smile:
Exuberant nature pours forth all her stores,
And chearful swains renew their annual toil:
War too, by intermission unsubdu'd,
Resumes its rage for violence and blood!
But that I fear my mortal muse would faint,
And leave me aidless in th' unbounded space,
My song the starry firmament should paint,
How planets run their vast eliptic race,
Arcturus urging on his starry team,
Orion's sword, and Ursa's guiding beam.
But let me stop the thought, nor strive to rein
This fiery steed, nor compass heights divine;
Lest I, dismounted on the Lycian plain,
Mourn like Bellerophon the rash design;
Enough that I with rude and doric strain,
Oh genial spring! have hail'd thy welcome reign.
~~
Jane West (1756-1852)
from Miscellaneous Poems, 1786
[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]
Jane West biography
Workshop of Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625) & Hendrick van Balen the Elder (1573–1632),
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