AN EVENING PROSPECT.
COME, my Susan, quit your chamber,
Greet the opening bloom of May,
Let us up yon hillock clamber,
And around the scene survey.
See the sun is now descending,
And projects his shadows far,
And the bee her course is bending
Homeward through the humid air.
Mark the lizard just before us,
Singing her unvaried strain,
While the frog abrupt in chorus,
Deepens through the marshy plain.
From yon grove the woodcock rises,
Mark her progress by her notes,
High in air her wings she poises,
Then like lightning down she shoots.
Now the whip-o-will beginning,
Clamorous on a pointed rail,
Drowns the more melodious singing
Of the catbird, thrush, and quail.
Pensive Echo, from the mountain,
Still repeats the sylvan sounds,
And the crocus-border'd fountain
With the splendid fly abounds.
There the honeysuckle blooming,
Reddens the capricious wave;
Richer sweets-the air perfuming,
Spicy Ceylon never gave.
Cast your eyes beyond this meadow,
Painted by a hand divine,
And observe the ample shadow
Of that solemn ridge of pine.
Here a trickling rill depending,
Glitters through the artless bower;
And the silver dew descending,
Doubly radiates every flower.
While I speak, the sun is vanish'd,
All the gilded clouds are fled,
Music from the groves is banish'd,
Noxious vapors round us spread.
Rural toil is now suspended,
Sleep invades the peasant's eyes,
Each diurnal task is ended,
While soft Luna climbs the skies.
Queen of rest and meditation,
Through thy medium I adore
Him-the author of creation,
Infinite, and boundless power.
"Tis he who fills thy urn with glory,
Transcript of immortal light;
Lord! my spirit bows before thee,
Lost in wonder and delight.
ALL hail, vernal Phœbus! all hail, ye soft breezes!
Announcing the visit of spring;
How green are the meadows! the air how it pleases!
How gleefully all the birds sing!
Begone, ye rude tempests, nor trouble the ether,
Nor let blushing Flora complain,
While her pencil was tinging the tulip, bad weather
Had blasted the promising gem.
From its verdant unfoldings, the timid narcissus
Now shoots out a diffident bud;
Begone ye rude tempests, for sure as it freezes
Ye kill this bright child of the wood:
And peace gives new charms to the bright beaming season;
The groves we now safely explore,
Where murdering banditti, the dark sons of treason,
Were shelter'd and awed as before.
The swain with his oxen proceeds to the valley,
Whose seven years sabbath concludes,
And blesses kind heaven, that Britain's black ally
Is chased to Canadia's deep woods.
And Echo no longer is plaintively mourning,
But laughs and is jocund as we;
And the turtle-eyed nymphs, to their cots all returning,
Carve "Washington," on every tree.
I'll wander along by the side of yon fountain,
And drop in its current the line,
To capture the glittering fish that there wanton;
Ah, no! 't is an evil design.
Sport on, little fishes, your lives are a treasure
Which I can destroy, but not give ;
Methinks it's at best a malevolent pleasure
To bid a poor being not live.
How lucid the water! its soft undulations
Are changeably ting'd by the light;
It reflects the green banks, and by fair imitations
Presents a new heaven to sight.
The butterfly skims o'er its surface, all gilded
With plumage just dipp'd in rich dies;
But yon infant has seized the poor insect, ah! yield it;
There, see the freed bird how it flies!
But whither am I and my little dog straying?
Too far from our cottage we roam;
The dews are already exhaled; cease your playing,
Come, Daphne, come let us go home.
Hail, happy shades! though clad with heavy snows,
At sight of you with joy my bosom glows;
Ye arching pines, that bow with every breeze,
Ye poplars, elms, all hail my well known trees!
And now my peaceful mansion strikes my eye,
And now the tinkling rivulet I spy;
My little garden, Flora, hast thou kept,"
And watch'd my pinks and lilies while I wept ?
Or has the grubbing swine, by furies led,
The enclosure broke, and on my flowrets fed?
Ah me! that spot with blooms so lately graced,
With storms and driving snows is now defaced;
Sharp icicles from every bush depend,
And frosts all dazzling o'er the beds extend:
Yet soon fair spring shall give another scene,
And yellow cowslips gild the level green;
My little orchard sprouting at each bough,
Fragrant with clustering blossoms deep shall glow:
Ah! then 't is sweet the tufted grass to tread,
But sweeter slumbering is the balmy shade;
The rapid humming bird, with ruby breast,
Seeks the parterre with early blue-bells drest,
Drinks deep the honeysuckle dew, or drives
The laboring bee to her domestic hives:
Then shines the lupine bright with morning gems,
And sleepy poppies nod upon their stems;
The humble violet and the dulcet rose,
The stately lily then, and tulip blows.
Farewell, my Plutarch! farewell, pen and muse!
Nature exults-shall I her call refuse?
Apollo fervid glitters in my face,
And threatens with his beam each feeble grace:
Yet still around the lovely plants I toil,
And draw obnoxious herbage from the soil;
Or with the lime-twigs little birds surprise,
Or angle for the trout of many dyes.
But when the vernal breezes pass away,
And loftier Phoebus darts a fiercer ray,
The spiky corn then rattles all around,
And dashing cascades give a pleasing sound;
Shrill sings the locust with prolonged note,
The cricket chirps familiar in each cot.
The village children, rambling o'er yon hill,
With berries all their painted baskets fill.
They rob the squirrel's little walnut store,
And climb the half exhausted tree for more;
Or else to fields of maize nocturnal hie,
Where hid, the elusive water-melons lie;
Sportive, they make incisions in the rind,
The riper from the immature to find;
Then load their tender shoulders with the prey,
And laughing bear the bulky fruit away.
MARGARETTA V. FAUGERES.
THIS lady was the daughter of Mrs Bleecker, and her poems were published in the same volume with those of her mother, in 1793.
NILE's beauteous waves, and Tiber's swelling tide
Have been recorded by the hand of Fame,
And various floods, which through earth's channels glide,
From some enraptured bard have gain'd a name;
E'en Thames and Wye have been the poet's theme,
And to their charms hath many an harp been strung,
Whilst, Oh! hoar genius of old Hudson's stream,
Thy mighty river never hath been sung:
Say, shall a female string her trembling lyre,
And to thy praise devote the adventurous song?
Fired with the theme, her genius shall aspire,
And the notes sweeten as they float along.
Where rough Ontario's restless waters roar,
And hoarsely rave around the rocky shore;
Where their abode tremendous north-winds make,
And reign the tyrants of the surging lake;
There, as the shell-crown'd genii of its caves
Toward proud Lawrence urged their noisy waves,
A form majestic from the flood arose;
A coral bandage sparkled o'er his brows,
A purple mantle o'er his limbs was spread,
And sportive breezes in his dark locks play'd:
Toward the east shore his anxious eyes he cast,
And from his ruby lips these accents pass'd:
"O favor'd land! indulgent nature yields
Her choicest sweets to deck thy boundless fields;
Where in thy verdant glooms the fleet deer play,
And the hale tenants of the desert stray,
While the tall evergreens that edge the dale
In silent majesty nod to each gale:
Thy riches shall no more remain unknown,
Thy wide campaign do I pronounce my own;
And while the strong arm'd genii of this lake
Their tributary streams to Lawrence take,
Back from its source my current will I turn,
And o'er thy meadows pour my copious urn."
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