Come, GENTLE Spring! ethereal MILDNESS, come! O! Thomson, void of rhyme as well as reason, How couldst thou thus poor human nature hum? There's no such season.

The Spring! I shrink and shudder at her name! For why, I find her breath a bitter blighter! And suffer from her BLOWS as if they came From Spring the Fighter.

Her praises, then, let hardy poets sing, And be her tuneful laureates and upholders, Who do not feel as if they had a SPRING Poured down their shoulders!

Let others eulogize her floral shows; From me they can not win a single stanza. I know her blooms are in full blow--and so's The Influenza.

Her cowslips, stocks, and lilies of the vale, Her honey-blossoms that you hear the bees at, Her pansies, daffodils, and primrose pale, Are things I sneeze at!

Fair is the vernal quarter of the year! And fair its early buddings and its blowings-- But just suppose Consumption's seeds appear With other sowings!

For me, I find, when eastern winds are high, A frigid, not a genial inspiration; Nor can, like Iron-Chested Chubb, defy An inflammation.

Smitten by breezes from the land of plague, To me all vernal luxuries are fables, O! where's the SPRING in a rheumatic leg, Stiff as a table's?

I limp in agony--I wheeze and cough; And quake with Ague, that great Agitator, Nor dream, before July, of leaving off My Respirator.

What wonder if in May itself I lack A peg for laudatory verse to hang on?-- Spring, mild and gentle!--yes, a Spring-heeled Jack To those he sprang on.

In short, whatever panegyrics lie In fulsome odes too many to be cited, The tenderness of Spring is all my eye, And that is blighted!

ODE.

ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF CLAPHAM ACADEMY. THOMAS HOOD.

Ah me! those old familiar bounds! That classic house, those classic grounds, My pensive thought recalls! What tender urchins now confine, What little captives now repine, Within yon irksome walls!

Ay, that's the very house! I know Its ugly windows, ten a row! Its chimneys in the rear! And there's the iron rod so high, That drew the thunder from the sky And turned our table-beer!

There I was birched! there I was bred! There like a little Adam fed From Learning's woeful tree! The weary tasks I used to con!-- The hopeless leaves I wept upon!-- Most fruitful leaves to me!

The summoned class!--the awful bow!-- I wonder who is master now And wholesome anguish sheds! How many ushers now employs, How many maids to see the boys Have nothing in their heads!

And Mrs. S * * *?--Doth she abet (Like Pallas in the palor) yet Some favored two or three-- The little Crichtons of the hour, Her muffin-medals that devour, And swill her prize--bohea?

Ay, there's the playground! there's the lime, Beneath whose shade in summer's prime So wildly I have read!-- Who sits there NOW, and skims the cream Of young Romance, and weaves a dream Of Love and Cottage-bread?

Who struts the Randall of the walk? Who models tiny heads in chalk? Who scoops the light canoe? What early genius buds apace? Where's Poynter? Harris? Bowers? Chase! Hal Baylis? blithe Carew?

Alack! they're gone--a thousand ways! And some are serving in "the Greys," And some have perished young!-- Jack Harris weds his second wife; Hal Baylis drives the WAYNE of life; And blithe Carew--is hung!