The pleasing gales that gentle summer yields

The pleasing gales that gentle summer yields, Amid the gay profusion of his store; The smiles of nature, and of verdant fields, Are all, alas! but blessings of an hour. How vast the beauties they around display, Till dreary winter reassumes his reign, And sternly bids them vanish and decay, And leave no traces on the pensive plain. The golden cowslip on th' enamell'd mead, Displays his youthful glories to the view, But soon he droops his solitary head, And yields his virtue to the evening's dew. Alas! how transient is the dream of life, And every heart-felt comfort we enjoy; And fraught with care, solicitude and strife, Each hour attempts our blessings to destroy. All human scenes are subject to decay, And time asserts an all-prevailing pow'r; Expanding beauties to the morning's ray, We bloom to wither, as the tender flow'r. Not so the soul—its views sublime and pure, Where faith, and hope, and charity unite, Shall rise, and dwell eternally secure, In Heaven's unfading mansions of delight.