Hymn of the Convalescent
My eyes have seen another spring
In floral beauty rise,
And happy birds on gladsome wing
Flit through the azure skies.
Though sickness bowed my feeble frame
Through winter’s cheerless hours,
Life’s sinking torch resumes its flame
With renovated powers.
Once more on nature’s ample shrine,
Beneath the spreading boughs,
With lifted hands and hopes divine
I offer up my vows.
My incense is the breath of flowers,
Perfuming all the air;
My pillared fane these woodland bowers,
A heaven-built house of prayer;
My fellow-worshippers, the gay,
Free songsters of the grove,
Who to the closing eye of day
Warble their hymns of love.
The low and dulcet lyre of spring,
Swept by the vagrant breeze,
Borne far on echo’s spreading wing
Stirs all the budding trees—
Again I catch the cuckoo’s note
That faintly murmurs near,
The mingled melodies that float
To rapture’s listening ear.
While April like a virgin pale
Retreats with modest grace,
And blushing through her tearful veil
Just shows her cherub face.
’Tis but a momentary gleam
From those young laughing eyes,
Yet, like a meteor’s passing beam,
It lights up earth, and skies:
But, ere the sun exhales the dew
That sparkles on the grass,
Dark clouds flit o’er the smiling blue,
Like shadows o’er a glass.
But ah! upon the musing mind
Those varied smiles and tears,
Like words of love but half defined,
Give birth to hopes and fears.
The joyful heart one moment bounds,
Then feels a sudden chill,
Whispering in vague uncertain sounds
Presentiments of ill.
When dire disease an arrow sent,
And thrilled my breast with pain,
My mind was like a bow unbent,
Or harp-strings after rain;
I could not weep—I could not pray,
Nor raise my thoughts on high,
Till light from heaven, like April’s ray,
Broke through the stormy sky!