Poetry Revisited: Old Winter is Gone by George Murray

Old Winter is Gone

(from One Hundred Modern Scottish Poets. Volume 1: 1880)

The stormy and blustering Old Winter is gone,
And Spring hath her sweet virgin blushes put on;
And blushing, and smiling, the tender young Queen
Is robed in a robe of the greenest of green.
Tho’ morning comes in with a tear in her eye,
All blithely and gladly she’ll smile by and by,
And the tear in the West ere the day’s well begun
Shall be dried by a smile from the eye of the sun.

O, spring hath returned with her sunshine and showers,
Bedecking the earth with her loveliest flowers;
And murmuring, and singing, each streamlet and rill
Comes dancing adown yon time-beaten hill.
Old Winter with many a scowl and a frown,
His head hides in grief ‘neath a storm-woven crown;
While his young virgin daughter, all beauty and grace,
Releases the earth from his icy embrace.

The breezes of morning trip down o’er the hill,
Inspiring and fresh after Winter’s long chill;
The old earth rejoices in youth yet again,
While Spring robes in beauty each woodland and glen;
At noon the glad birds carol joyous and loud
From the song-land above in yon feathery cloud,
The dew slakes the earth’s thirst at eve, and at morn
Shall sparkle like gems on the blossoming thorn.

O, fresh is the meadow, and fresh is the wood,
And fresh is the bank overhanging the flood;
And fresh are the flowers that are scatter’d abroad
The brae-side adorning, bedecking the sod.
O, sweet is the fragrance perfuming the air,
And sweet are the melodies heard everywhere;
And sweet are the hopes Fancy pictures to me
As I wander at eve o’er the gowany lea—

Sweet hopes of the dawn of a bright happy day;
Sweet hopes of a fair sunny land far away;
Sweet hopes of the present, as onward it flies;
Sweet hopes of the future, with sunnier skies;
Sweet hopes of the earth yielding plenty again;
Sweet hopes of success if we quit us like men;
Sweet hopes, gladsome hopes, that when spring-time be past
Our lives shall be one glorious Summer at last!

George Murray (birth and death dates unknown)
Scottish poet of Irish parentage