Volume 67 / Part 6 — OVID’S SPRING-TIME FROM THE TRISTIA.

For once the zephyrs have removed the cold:

One year is over, and a new begun.

So short a winter, I am daily told,

Never yet yielded to this northern sun.

I see the children skipping o’er the green,

Plucking the faint unodorous violet,

A gentle stranger, rarely ever seen.

With other flowers the mead is sparsely set—

Brown birds are twittering with the joy of spring:

The universal swallow, ne’er at rest,

Aye chirping, glances past on purple wing,

And builds beneath the humble eaves her nest.

The plant, which yester-year the share o’erthrew,

Looks up again from out the opening mould;

And the poor vines, though here but weak and few,

Some scantling buds, like ill-set gems, unfold.

W. E. A.

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