THE

WALK ON A DAY IN SUMMER.

B

THE WALK ON A DAY IN SUMMER.

"I rose anon and thought I would gone
Into the wood to hear the birds sing,
When that the misty vapour was agone,
And clear and faire was the morrowing."

Chaucer.

VISIBLE good, by nature shewn, accords
With human action, ill defined by words:
On such a day as this, with primal glow
Light had invested Eden-heaven below:
Then the first orisons in grove and glade
Aerial voices sang-ere man was made.
On such a day as this the Poet pure*

Pour'd forth his grateful verse, that will endure

*Thomson.

As long as the revolving seasons bring

Those changes wonderful he loved to sing.

As a saloon-frequenting poet vain,

Struts Chanticleer before his cackling train.

Rising o'er flowery meads soft gales upbear *
A thousand odours through the balmy air;
Pure is that air as love of seraphs, sweet

The flowers that freshly rise our steps to greet.

Hence Poesy, as Flora deck'd the earth,

Bodied her rosy-bosom'd hours forth.

And brightest things that chilling winds destroy,

To-day are on the wing elate with joy ;

Thus Fashion's minion, while on his affairs

Smiles fortune, wantons—with her frown, despairs.

Though fortune smiles again, his day is past;

He irrecoverably loses caste.

* Aurarumque leves animæ-Lucretius, Lib. v., v. 237.