The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker/Peace

All hail vernal Phoebus! 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 æther,
 * 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 murd'ring banditti, the dark sons of treason,
 * Were shelter'd and aw'd 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 chas'd to Canadia's deep woods.

And Echo no longer is plaintively mourning,
 * But laughs and is jocund as we;

And the turtle ey'd 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! 'tis 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 dipt in rich dies;

But yon infant has seiz'd 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 exhal'd; cease your playing,
 * Come, Daphne, come let us go home.