---

Thomas Gray - Ode On The Spring
Work rating: Medium

Lo! where the rosy-bosom`d Hours,
         Fair Venus` train appear,
     Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
         And wake the purple year!
     The Attic warbler pours her throat,
     Responsive to the cuckoo`s note,
         The untaught harmony of spring:
     While whisp`ring pleasure as they fly,
     Cool zephyrs thro` the clear blue sky
       Their gather`d fragrance fling.

   Where`er the oak`s thick branches stretch
       A broader, browner shade;
   Where`er the rude and moss-grown beech
       O`er-canopies the glade,
   Beside some water`s rushy brink
   With me the Muse shall sit, and think
       (At ease reclin`d in rustic state)
   How vain the ardour of the crowd,
   How low, how little are the proud,
       How indigent the great!

   Still is the toiling hand of Care:
       The panting herds repose:
   Yet hark, how thro` the peopled air
       The busy murmur glows!
   The insect youth are on the wing,
   Eager to taste the honied spring,
       And float amid the liquid noon:
   Some lightly o`er the current skim,
   Some show their gaily-gilded trim
       Quick-glancing to the sun.

   To Contemplation`s sober eye
       Such is the race of man:
   And they that creep, and they that fly,
       Shall end where they began.
   Alike the busy and the gay
   But flutter thro` life`s little day,
       In fortune`s varying colours drest:
   Brush`d by the hand of rough Mischance,
   Or chill`d by age, their airy dance
       They leave, in dust to rest.

   Methinks I hear in accents low
       The sportive kind reply:
   Poor moralist! and what art thou?
       A solitary fly!
   Thy joys no glitt`ring female meets,
   No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
       No painted plumage to display:
   On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
   Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone—
       We frolic, while `tis May.
Source
The script ran 0.001 seconds.