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| HAIL! beauteous Stranger of the wood! | |
| Attendant on the Spring! | |
| Now heav’n repairs thy rural seat, | |
| And woods thy welcome sing. | |
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| Soon as the daisy decks the green, | 5 |
| Thy certain voice we hear: | |
| Hast thou a star to guide thy path, | |
| Or mark the rolling year? | |
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| Delightful visitant! with thee | |
| I hail the time of flow’rs, | 10 |
| When heav’n is fill’d with music sweet | |
| Of birds among the bow’rs. | |
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| The schoolboy wand’ring in the wood | |
| To pull the flow’rs so gay, | |
| Starts, thy curious voice to hear, | 15 |
| And imitates thy lay. | |
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| Soon as the pea puts on the bloom, | |
| Thou fly’st thy vocal vale, | |
| An annual guest, in other lands, | |
| Another Spring to hail. | 20 |
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| Sweet bird! thy bow’r is ever green, | |
| Thy sky is ever clear; | |
| Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, | |
| No winter in thy year! | |
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| Alas! sweet bird! not so my fate, | 25 |
| Dark scowling skies I see | |
| Fast gathering round, and fraught with woe | |
| And wintry years to me. | |
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| O could I fly, I’d fly with thee: | |
| We’d make, with social wing, | 30 |
| Our annual visit o’er the globe, | |
| Companions of the Spring. | |
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