SPRING-FLOWERS, spring-birds, spring-breezes Are felt, and heard, and seen; Light trembling transport seizes My heart, -- with sighs between: These old enchantments fill the mind With scenes and seasons far behind; Childhood, its smiles and tears, Youth, with its flush of years, Its morning-clouds and dewy prime, More exquisitely touch'd by Time. Fancies again are springing, Like May-flowers in the vales; While hopes, long lost, are singing, From thorns, like nightingales; And kindly spirits stir my blood, Like vernal airs, that curl the flood: There falls to manhood's lot A joy, which youth has not. A dream more beautifull than truth, -- Returning Spring, renewing Youth. Thus sweetly to surrender The present for the past; In sprightly mood, yet tender, Life's burden down to cast, -- This is to taste, from stage to stage, Youth on the lees refined by age: Like wine well kept and long, Heady, not harsh, nor strong, With every annual cup, is quaff'd A richer, purer, mellower draught. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SUSSEX DRINKING SONG by HILAIRE BELLOC THE BLUEBELL by EMILY JANE BRONTE GYPSY MAN by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES JACK AND JILL (1) by MOTHER GOOSE OUR MASTER by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER A SUMMER DAY by HENRY CHARLES BEECHING |