New Hampshire 2011: Spring is On Its Way

There are only 54 days until Spring, and so a poem full of flowers and hope is in order today.

O haste, ye vernal gales, to breathe
The genial, balmy air of Spring;
And smiling nature’s floral wreath
On wings of gentle zephyrs bring.
Ye liquid streams, soft murm’ring slow,
Again resume your peaceful flow;
And wake, ye birds, on every spray,
The warblings of your plaintive lay.

Then from bright Helicon’s fair bowers,
The rural muse shall play her lyre,
And sailing on the roseate hours,
The strings of melody inspire:
While echo, from the hills around,
Shall mingle in the flowing sound;
And woodland nymphs their garlands bring,
To strew up on the lap of spring.

And when the vesper shadows fall,
And Cynthia pours her mellow light,
Shedding her lucid rays o’er all
The flow’rets dipp’d in dews of night;
I’ll wander in the leafy grove,
And through the lonely valley rove,
Still listening to the evening breeze
That signs amid the verdant trees
— Carlos

From: New-Hampshire Statesman, newspaper (Concord, NH) Monday, February 24, 1823; Issue 8; col A [originally published in the Salem Gazette, Salem MA]