VERNAL PICTURES (WITHOUT AND WITHIN) .

A MID fresh roses wandering, and the soft
And delicate wealth of apple-blossoms spread
In tender spirals of blent white and red,
Round the fair spaces of our blooming croft, —
This morn I caught the gurgling note, so oft
Heard in the golden spring-tides that are dead, —
The Swallow's note, murmuring of winter fled,
Dropped silverly from passionless calms aloft: —
" O heart! " I said, " thy vernal depths unclose,
That mirror Nature's; warm airs, come and go
Of whispering Ardors o'er Thought's budded rose,
And half-hid flowers of sweet philosophy;
While now upglancing, now borne swift and low,
Song like the swallow darts through Fancy's sky. "