On a Tree blighted by the winds

On a Tree blighted by the winds

Alas! lovely hawthorn, how lately I gazed
On thy flourishing branches, all covered with bloom,
So perfect their beauty, I paused while I praised,
And inhaled from the gale their delicious perfume.

Like the blush on a cloud, in the sun's parting beam,
When dew drops are sparkling a meadow and tree,
Did the beautiful glow of thy lustre seem,
But I deem'd not its fading, an emblem of thee

No, I thought, that I still, in my rambles migh trace,
The smile which around thee delighted to play,
And my footsteps unconsciously stray'd to the place,
Where I late had beheld thee, all blooming and gay.

But how changed! where has vanished that roseate hue
How shriveled the leaves, late in verdure array'd,
The breath of the spoiler hath passed where they grew,
And all blacken'd they shrink wither'd, torn and decay'd.

Alas! lovely tree, in thy fate I can read,
The hopes of some fond one, all blighted and lost,
Who imagined the morning's bright dawn to precede,
A noon as unclouded, by sorrow uncross'd.

And methinks, whilst I gaze on thy perishing form,
It seems the meet emblem of some gentle maid,
Whose youth, in its beauty, hath shrunk from the storm,
That low in the dust, all its loveliness laid.

But that youth shall revive, & its beauty renew,
In the light of a heaven, unclouded by storms,
And again lovely hawthorn, thy bloom we shall view,
In springs that more genial no tempest deforms.

Then we'll mourn not that all, that is fairest on earth,
Blooms but for a season, and quickly decays,
But await the glad dawn, of that lovelier birth,
When immortal in beauty, springs breaks on our gaze.

Liverpool. E.D.

E.D.

2:35, p. 286

1828.12.05