Summer

The Spring's gay promise melted into thee,
Fair Summer! and thy gentle reign is here;
The emerald robes are on each leafy tree;
In the blue sky thy voice is rich and clear;
And the free brooks have songs to bless thy reign —
They leap in music midst thy bright domain.
The gales, that wander from the unclouded west,
Are burden' d with the breath of countless fields;
They teem with incense from the green earth's breast
That up to heaven its grateful odour yields;
Bearing sweet hymns of praise from many a bird,
By nature's aspect into rapture stirr'd.
In such a scene the sun-illumined heart
Bounds like a prisoner in his narrow cell,
When through its bars the morning glories dart,
And forest-anthems in his hearing swell —
And, like the heaving of the voiceful sea,
His panting bosom labours to be free.
Thus, gazing on thy void and sapphire sky,
O, Summer! in my inmost soul arise
.Uplifted thoughts, to which the woods reply,
And the bland air with its soft melodies; —
Till basking in some vision's glorious ray,
"I long for eagle's plumes to flee away.
Jlong to cast this cumbrous clay aside,
And the impure, unholy thoughts that cling
' To the sad bosom, torn with care and pride:
I would soar upward, on unfetter'd wing,
Far through the chambers of the peaceful skies,
Where the high fount of Summer's brightness lies!
But should with rapture gaze upon the sky,
Through whose far depths the spirit's wing careers?
There gleams eternal o'er their ways are flung,
Who fade from earth while yet their years are young!