Fruits of Retirement: OR, Miscellaneous POEMS Moral and Divine, AN EPISTLE

Is Friends fled, or Love grown cold? Do frozen Walls of Ice with-hold Its pearly Streams? O let the Sun, That gave it being, shine upon The brittle Fence! Or in some Skreen Injuriously set up between The gentle Spring, and that bright Ray Which, conqu'ring Night, brings joy ful Day? Remove that Obstacle away: Then, tho' with Grief I may consess, In Winter-time th' Effects be less, Because of Distance, or cold Air Prevailing in our Hemisphere, And interposing (For Sol's Pow'r Is still the same each Day and Hour) It will dissolve the Frost in time, If its warm Ray there-on may shine; Tho' vacant Clouds do interpose Its pure refulgent Beam, and those Inferiour Concretes that have Birth From the gross Element of Earth. But stay! Methinks a Spring should be From Winters chilling force, more free Than to be Frozen! Inbred Heat Is then, with purest Springs, more great; And with its Current soon doth glide Thro' Ice besetting either side. Let Love spring up, that we may see The same Effects, dear Friend, in thee.