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Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers!

To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers
Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare,
And what dear gifts on thee he did not spare;
A stain to human sense in sin that lowers.
What soul can be so sick, which by thy songs,
Attired in sweetness, sweetly is not driven
Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites and wrongs,
And lift a reverend eye and thought to heaven?

Sweet artless songster, thou my mind dost raise

To airs of spheres, yes, and to angels' lays.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND.

SONNET.

WITH how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies!

How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! may it be, that e'en in heav'nly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case;
I read it in thy looks; thy languish'd grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.

Then, ev'n of fellowship, O moon, tell me,
Is constant love deem'd there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet

Those lovers scorn, whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

ODES AND SONNETS.

SONNET.

As I have seen the lady of the May
Set in the arbour (on a holy-day)

Built by the May-pole, where the jocund swains
Dance with the maidens to the bagpipe's strains,
When envious night commands them to be gone,
Call for the merry youngsters one by one,
And for their well performance soon disposes,
To this a garland interwove with roses;
To that a carved hook, or well-wrought scrip,
Gracing another with her cherry lip;
To one her garter, to another then

A handkerchief cast o'er and o'er again;

And none returneth empty that have spent
His pains to fill their rural merriment.

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SONNET

WRITTEN AT THE CLOSE OF SPRING.

THE garlands fade that Spring so lately wove,

Each simple flower, which she had nursed in dew, Anemones, that spangled every grove,

The primrose wan, and harebell mildly blue.
No more shall violets linger in the dell,
Or purple orchis variegate the plain,

Till Spring again shall call forth every bell,
And dress with humid hands her wreaths again.

Ah, poor humanity! so frail, so fair,

Are the fond visions of thy early day,

Till tyrant passion, and corrosive care,
Bid all thy fairy colours fade away!

Another May new buds and flowers shall bring;
Ah! why has happiness no second spring?

CHARLOTTE SMITH.

EVENING ODE.

TO STELLA.

EVENING now from purple wings
Sheds the grateful gifts she brings;

Brilliant drops bedeck the mead,
Cooling breezes shake the reed;

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