Promise of Spring.
Reading edition
The sun-beguiling breeze, From the soft Cuban seas, With life-bestowing kiss wakes the pride of garden bowers; And lo! our city elms, Have plumed with buds their helms, And, with tiny spears salute the coming on of flowers.
The promise of the Spring, Is in every glancing wing That tells its flight in song which shall long survive the flight; And mocking Winter's glooms, Skies, air and earth grow blooms, With change as bless'd as ever came with passage of a night!
Ah! could our hearts but share The promise rich and rare, That welcomes life to rapture in each happy fond caress, That makes each innocent thing Put on its bloom and wing, Singing for Spring to come to the realm she still would bless!
But, alas for us, no more Shall the coming hour rescore The glory, sweet and wonted, of the seasons to our souls; Even as the Spring appears, Her smiling makes our tears, While with each bitter memory the torrent o'er us rolls.
Even as our zephyrs sing That they bring us in the Spring, Even as our bird grows musical in ecstasy of flight-- We see the serpent crawl, With his slimy coat o'er all, And blended with the song is the hissing of his blight.
We shudder at the blooms, Which but serve to cover tombs-- At the very sweet of odors which blend venom with the breath; Sad shapes look out from trees, And in sky and earth and breeze, We behold but the aspect of a Horror worse than Death!
South Carolinian.