On The Sight Of Spring.

How sweet it us'd to be, when April first     Unclos'd the arum-leaves, and into view     Its ear-like spindling flowers their cases burst,     Beting'd with yellowish white or lushy hue:     Though manhood now with such has small to do,     Yet I remember what delight was mine     When on my Sunday walks I us'd to go,     Flower-gathering tribes in childish bliss to join;     Peeping and searching hedge-row side or woods,     When thorns stain green with slow unclosing buds.     Ah, how delighted, humming on the time     Some nameless song or tale, I sought the flowers;     Some rushy dyke to jump, or brink to climb,     Ere I obtain'd them; while from hasty showers     Oft under trees we nestled in a ring,     Culling our "lords and ladies."--O ye hours!     I never see the broad-leav'd arum spring     Stained with spots of jet; I never see     Those dear delights which April still does bring,     But memory's tongue repeats it all to me.     I view her pictures with an anxious eye,     I hear her stories with a pleasing pain:     Youth's wither'd flowers, alas! ye make me sigh,     To think in me ye'll never bloom again.