A SPRING SONG AND A LATER

She sang a song of May for me,

Wherein once more I heard

The mirth of my glad infancy —

The orchard's earliest bird —

The joyous breeze among the trees

New-clad in leaf and bloom,

And there the happy honey-bees

In dewy gleam and gloom.

So purely, sweetly on the sense

Of heart and spirit fell

Her song of Spring, its influence —

Still irresistible,—

Commands me here — with eyes ablur —

To mate her bright refrain.

Though I but shed a rhyme for her

As dim as Autumn rain.