Peach-Blossom

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