Classic Poem

ON HER BIRTH-DAY

This is thy birth-day! and for friendship's sake,
Ev'n in this gloomiest season of the year,
Feelings as warm as spring could ever wake
Have chronicled, and bid me hold it dear.
The heart has in itself a hemisphere
That knows not change of season, day or night;
For still when thoughts of those we love are near,
Their cherish'd forms arise before our sight,
And o'er the spirit shed fresh sunshine and delight

Nature, who wore when few months since we met
Her summer garb, a different dress displays;
Your garden walks may now be moss'd and wet;
The jasmine's star-like bloom, which, in the rays
Of the bright moon seem'd lovely to my gaze,
Has faded now; and the green leaves, that grew
So lightly on the acacia's topmost sprays,
Have lost, ere this, the beauty of their hue,
And quiver o'er the path their reliques soon must strew.

Is there nought left then loveliness to lend
Unto the spot my memory loves to trace?
Should I now find, were I to come and spend
A day with you, no beauty left to grace
What seemed of quiet joy the dwelling place?
Oh, yes! believe me, much as I admired
Those charms which change of seasons can efface,
It was not such alone, when home retired,
That memory cherish'd most, or most the Muse inspired.

When Nature sheds her leafy loveliness,
She does not die: her vital principle
But seeks awhile its innermost recess,
And there securely finds a citadel
Which even winter owns impregnable;
The sap, retreating downward to the root,
Is still alive, as spring shall shortly tell,
By swelling buds, whence blossoms soon will shoot,
Dispensing fragrance round, and pledge of future fruit.

And thus our best affections, those which bind
Heart unto heart by friendship's purest tie,
Have an internal life, and are enshrined
Too deeply in our bosoms soon to die
Spring's opening bloom and summer's azure sky
Might lend them animation scarce their own;
But when November winds are loud and high,
And Nature's dirge assumes its deepest tone,
The joy of social hours in fullest charm is known.