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(From Peach-Blossom)
NIGHTLY the hoar-frost freezes | |
| The young grass of the field, | |
| Nor yet have blander breezes | |
| The buds of the oak unsealed; | |
| Not yet pours out the vine | 5 |
| His airy resinous wine; | |
| But over the southern slope | |
| The wands of the peach-tree first | |
| Into rosy beauty burst; | |
| A breath, and the sweet buds ope! | 10 |
| A day, and the orchards bare, | |
| Like maids in haste to be fair, | |
| Lightly themselves adorn | |
| With a scarf the Spring at the door | |
| Has sportively flung before, | 15 |
| Or a stranded cloud of the morn! * * * * * | |
| Afar, through the mellow hazes | |
| Where the dreams of June are stayed, | |
| The hills, in their vanishing mazes, | |
| Carry the flush, and fade! | 20 |
| Southward they fall, and reach | |
| To the bay and the ocean beach, | |
| Where the soft, half-Syrian air | |
| Blows from the Chesapeake’s | |
| Inlets, coves, and creeks | 25 |
| On the fields of Delaware! | |
| And the rosy lakes of flowers, | |
| That here alone are ours, | |
| Spread into seas that pour | |
| Billow and spray of pink, | 30 |
| Even to the blue wave’s brink, | |
| All down the Eastern Shore! * * * * * | |
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