Stript her last robes, with gold and purple gay.--
So droops my life, of your soft beams despoil'd,
Youth, Health, and Hope, that long exulting smil'd;
And the wild carols, and the bloomy hues
Of merry Spring-time, spruce on every plain
Her half-blown bushes, moist with sunny rain,
More pensive thoughts in my sunk heart infuse
Than Winter's grey, and desolate domain,
Faded, like my lost Youth, that no bright Spring renews.

SONNET LXXXV.

TO MARCH.

MARCH, tho' the Hours of promise with bright ray
May gild thy noons, yet, on wild pinion borne,
Loud Winds more often rudely wake thy morn,
And harshly hymn thy early-closing day.
Still the chill'd Earth wears, with her tresses shorn,
Her bleak, grey garb:--yet not for _this_ we mourn,
Nor, as in Winter's more enduring sway,
With festal viands, and Associates gay,
Arm 'gainst the Skies;--nor _shun_ the piercing gale;
But, with blue cheeks, and with disorder'd hair,
Meet its rough breath;--and peep for primrose pale,
Or lurking violet, under hedges bare;
And, thro' long evenings, from our Lares[1] claim
The thrift of stinted grate, and sullen flame.

1: Lares, Hearth-Gods.

SONNET LXXXVI.

TO THE LAKE OF KILLARNEY[1].

Pride of Ierne's Sea-encircled bound,
Rival of all Britannia's Naiads boast,
Magnificent Killarney!--from thy coast
Tho' mountains rise with noblest woods embrown'd;
Tho' ten-voiced Echos send the cannon's sound
In thunders bursting the vast rocks around,
Till startled Wonder and Delight exhaust
In countless repercussion--Isles embost
Upon thy liquid glass; their bloomy veil
Sorbus and [=a]rbutus;--yet not for thee
So keenly wakes our local ecstacy,
As o'er the narrow, barren, silent Dale,
Where deeply sleeps, rude circling Rocks among,
The Love-devoted Fount enamour'd PETRARCH sung.

1: This Sonnet was written on having read a description of the
Killarney Scenery immediately after that of the Vale of Vaucluse,
uncultivated and comparatively desert as the latter has been through
more than the present Century.

SONNET LXXXVII.

TO A YOUNG LADY,
ADDRESSED BY A GENTLEMAN CELEBRATED FOR HIS POETIC TALENTS.

Round Cleon's brow the Delphic laurels twine,
And lo! the laurel decks Amanda's breast!
Charm'd shall he mark its glossy branches shine
On that contrasting snow; shall s