Fair flower! that, from the southern skies,
Hast reached us with thy bloom;
Thou dost our hearts with joy surprise,
And banish winter's gloom!
For oft, we know not, how or why,
Its gloom steals o'er the heart;
Earth's frozen breast, the stormy sky,
Seem of ourselves part.

Thou break'st the spell; as when the Spring
Returns to cheer our sight;
And, in her train, doth with her bring
The flowers, our chief delight;
She calls them, with her gentle voice,
And bids their tribes appear;
With southern fields our own rejoice,
For Spring again is here!

A bond thou art 'twixt state and state,
A link in Nature's chain;
That doth man's written laws out date,
That ever shall remain;
To tell us of God's boundless love
To all of human kind;
And, like the Gospel from above,
Their hearts in one to bind.