Nightly the hoar-frost freezes
The young grass of the field,
Nor yet have blander breezes
The buds of the oak unsealed;
Not yet pours out the vine
His airy resinous wine;
But over the southern slope
The wands of the peach-tree first
Into rosy beauty burst;
A breath, and the sweet buds ope!
A day, and the orchards bare,
Like maids in haste to be fair,
Lightly themselves adorn
With a scarf the Spring at the door
Has sportively flung before,
Or a stranded cloud of the morn!
Afar, through the mellow hazes
Where the dreams of June are stayed,
The hills, in their vanishing mazes,
Carry the flush, and fade!
Southward they fall, and reach
To the bay and the ocean beach,
Where the soft, half-Syrian air
Blows from the Chesapeake's
Inlets, coves, and creeks
On the fields of Delaware!
And the rosy lakes of flowers,
That here alone are ours,
Spread into seas that pour
Billow and spray of pink,
Even to the blue wave's brink,
All down the Eastern Shore
