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Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields: the softening air is balm.

RETURN TO THE COUNTRY IN SPRING.

ADDRESSED TO

YOUNGER VILLAGE-FRIENDS.

"The winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."

POETS have greeted thy return, sweet May! in every age and country;-and here let us follow their advice" Be cheerful: be full of mirth: for the Spring passes soon away, it will not last." We will repair our summer-bowers when the almond-tree sheds its silver blossoms: we will listen for the tale of the nightingale, as the vernal season approaches.

In modern times, however, joy and gladness are reduced to mere sentiment: and with some degree of envy we read of the Floralia, or games in honour of Flora, of ancient times: and of Maid Marian and Robin Hood, &c.-all now banished to their native woods: we, villagers, have nothing left for it, but to store our memories with the Poet's images, and so be merry and wise.

Again we hail thee! beauteous May! and joyfully

return to the tranquil pleasures of our seclusion. As we rove amid the luxuriant bloom of reviving nature, and press the rich turf that springs beneath our feet, we seem to feel again, in all their freshness, the sensations of our childhood, the serene sky, enamelled mead, the perfumed air, the soft agitation of the foliage, the melody of birds, and all the harmonies of nature, welcome thy return, sweet May.*

Amid thy flowers may our children inhale the fragrance of the new spring, which often revives the tenderest association of past felicity; in the whispers of the breeze may they hear some seraph-voice, which speaks of the fondest anticipations!

Does not a group of innocent, unsophisticated beings, who seem instinctively to prefer rural life, remind us, that man was placed by the hand of his Creator in a garden? All the purest impressions of human existence we acknowledge to be still allied to this scene: it becomes, therefore, an important duty to cherish the habit of deriving pleasure from every rural image, and to enlarge the faculty of receiving delight from the works of God, from " rural sights, and rural sounds."

In the same manner as your fingers touch the harp in producing the strains of tender and bewitching harmony, so may the hand of education,

* "The Tears of Old May Day," a beautiful Poem, you will find in No. 82, of "The World."

"To certain species of external things,
Attune the finer feelings of the mind.”

Beholding creation bursting into new life, it is most pleasing to call attention to the impressive constancy of great Nature, who is hourly decorating every scene with renewed bloom and tender tints. The various sounds of new existence ask us to sympathize in the joys of re-animated earth; and our poets furnish the strain; we repeat Milton's MayMorning.*

Permit me to sketch some of the features of a scene which await us on an annual return to the country.

The first promised pleasure of a family group is to revisit their respective little gardens; every nook is explored, where Flora hides her modest progeny of the early year: their anxious search soon produces the first bouquet to present on the father's subsequent arrival. 'Tis their's to reform yon flowery border; though it must be confessed, that neatness is too often sacrificed to the good intent: the mimic spade, and hoe, and wheelbarrow, often mar the rich inlay, bordering the ground; but the cheerful notes of joy and activity compensate this deterioration.

While we, of more sober mood, are watching the

* Refer to Edgeworth's Practical Education, p. 161, vol. 2. Ode to Spring, by J. Warton. Darwin's May-Day, and Ode to Spring, by Gray, &c.

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