When a poet mentions the spring, we know that
the zephyrs are about to whisper, that the groves
are to recover their verdure, the linnets to warble
forth their notes of love, and the flocks and herds
to frisk over vales painted with flowers: yet, who is
there so insensible of the beauties of nature, so
little delighted with the renovation of the world,
as not to feel his heart bound at the mention of
the spring?
When night overshadows a romantick scene, all
is stillness, silence, and quiet; the poets of the grove
cease their melody, the moon towers over the world
in gentle majesty, men forget their labours and their
cares, and every passion and pursuit is for a while
suspended. All this we know already, yet we hear
it repeated without weariness; because such is
generally the life of man, that he is pleased to think on
the time when he shall pause from a sense of his
condition.
When a poetical grove invites us to its covert,
we know that we shall find what we have already
seen, a limpid brook murmuring over pebbles, a bank
diversified with flowers, a green arch that excludes
the sun, and a natural grot shaded with myrtles;
yet who can forbear to enter the pleasing gloom to
enjoy coolness and privacy, and gratify himself once
more by scenes with which nature has formed him
to be delighted?
Many moral sentiments likewise are so adapted to
our state, that they find approbation whenever
they solicit it, and are seldom read without
exciting a gentle emotion in the mind: such is the
comparison of the life of man with the duration of
a flower, a thought which perhaps every nation has
heard warbled in its own language, from the inspired
poets of the Hebrews to our own times; yet this
comparison must always please, because every heart
feels its justness, and every hour confirms it by
example.
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