Behold, the young, the rosy Spring,

Gives to the breeze her scented wing:

While virgin Graces, warm with May;

Fling roses o'er her dewy way.

The murmuring billows of the deep

Have languished into silent sleep;

And mark! the flitting sea-birds lave

Their plumes in the reflecting wave;

While cranes from hoary winter fly

To flutter in a kinder sky.

Now the genial star of day

Dissolves the murky clouds away;

And cultured field, and winding stream,

Are freshly glittering in his beam.

  Now the earth prolific swells

With leafy buds and flowery bells;

Gemming shoots the olive twine,

Clusters ripe festoon the vine;

All along the branches creeping,

Through the velvet foliage peeping,

Little infant fruits we see,

Nursing into luxury.

[1] The fastidious affectation of some commentators has denounced this ode as spurious. Degen pronounces the four last lines to be the patch-work of some miserable versificator, and Brunck condemns the whole ode. It appears to me, on the contrary, to be elegantly graphical: full of delicate expressions and luxuriant imagery.