The Spring

Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost    Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost    Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream    Upon the silver lake or crystal stream;    But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth,    And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth    To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree    The drowsy cuckoo, and the humble-bee.    Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring   In triumph to the world the youthful Spring.   The valleys, hills, and woods in rich array   Welcome the coming of the long'd-for May.   Now all things smile, only my love doth lour;   Nor hath the scalding noonday sun the power   To melt that marble ice, which still doth hold   Her heart congeal'd, and makes her pity cold.   The ox, which lately did for shelter fly   Into the stall, doth now securely lie   In open fields; and love no more is made   By the fireside, but in the cooler shade   Amyntas now doth with his Chloris sleep   Under a sycamore, and all things keep   Time with the season; only she doth carry   June in her eyes, in her heart January.

Form: couplets3. Candies: forms crystals upon, like candied fruit. 6-7. sacred birth/To the dead swallow.

Swallows were sacred to the Penates or household gods of the Romans and it was thought unlucky to kill one.

It was believed that they did not migrate but became torpid and hibernated in river banks until roused by the sun. 21. Amyntas and Chloris: recurrent names in pastoral poetry.