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The following poem by Robert Herrick, entitled "Farewell Frost; or, Welcome Spring," is very descriptive, though not remarkable for the peculiar melody of sound usually found in his short but sweet writings.
Fled are the frosts, and now the fields appeare
Recloth'd in freshe and verdant diaper;
Thawed are the snowes, and now the lusty spring
Gives to each mead a neat enameling;
The palmes put forth their gemmes, and every tree
Now swaggers in her leavy gallantry.
The while the Daulian minstrell sweetly sings,
With warbling notes, her Tyrrean sufferings,
What gentle winds respire! as if here
Never had been the northern plunderer,
To strip the trees and fields, to their distresse,
Leaving them in a pittied nakednesse.
And look how when a frantick storme doth teare
A stubborn oake or holme, long growing there,
But lul'd to calmnesse, then succeeds a breeze
That scarcely stirs the nodding leaves of trees;
So when this warre, which tempest-like doth spoil
Our salt, our corne, our honie, wine, and oil,
Falls to a temper, and doth mildly cast
His inconsiderate frenzie off at last,
The gentle dove may, when these turmoils cease,
Bring in her bill, once more, the branch of peace.
The changes from Winter to Spring, and from a time of war to that of peace, are here very happily compared. But in our Flower legends Herrick will be heard to greatest advantage; in grace, fancy, and the most melodious cadences of verse, he is unrivalled, either by old or modern writers. Yet while thus eulogising his really sweet poems, I ought, perhaps, to
