ON THE Backwardness of the SPRING 1771. Anna Laetitia Barbauld (née Aikin) Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. T236 K019955.000 Barbauld, Mrs. (Anna Letitia), 1743-1825. Poems. London printed for Joseph Johnson 1773 pp. 31-32. vi,138p. ; 4⁰.

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ON THE Backwardness of the SPRING 1771. Estatem increpitans seram , zephyrosque morantes . VIRGIL . IN vain the sprightly sun renews his course , Climbs up th' ascending signs and leads the day , While long embattled clouds repel his force , And lazy vapours choak the golden ray . In vain the spring proclaims the new-born year ; No flowers beneath her lingering footsteps spring , No rosy garland binds her flowing hair , And in her train no feather'd warblers sing . Her opening breast is stain'd with frequent showers , Her streaming tresses bath'd in chilling dews , And sad before her move the pensive hours , Whose flagging wings no breathing sweets diffuse . Like some lone pilgrim , clad in mournful weed , Whose wounded bosom drinks her falling tears , On whose pale cheek relentless sorrows feed , Whose dreary way no sprightly carol chears . Not thus she breath'd on Arno's purple shore , And call'd the Tuscan Muses to her bowers ; Not this the robe in Enna's vale she wore , When Ceres daughter fill'd her lap with flowers . Clouds behind clouds in long succession rise , And heavy snows oppress the springing green ; The dazzling waste fatigues the aching eyes , And fancy droops beneath th' unvaried scene . Indulgent nature loose this frozen zone ; Thro' opening skies let genial sun-beams play ; Dissolving snows shall their glad impulse own , And melt upon the bosom of the May .