APRIL MORNING

I lean upon the bridge’ s rail,

In idle joy, and gazing down,

So watch the frothy bubbles sail,

And bits of tangled grasses trail

Along the current’ s tawny brown.

The river flows at full to-day;

And though within the tide it pours

There grow no mocking sycamores,

Nor any crystal hints betray

The spicewood thickets, nor the pale

Soft willow wands of pearly gray,

Whose interwoven mazes veil

The fretted banks, yet here and there,

Adown some swirling eddy, where

A delving sunbeam shines,

What mines

Of gleaming, streaming, liquid gold

The waters hold!

And so, by rapid currents rolled

In billowy swells that break and chime

In riotous tumult uncontrolled,

The March flood plashes past the pier;

But through its sweeping tones, I hear

The sweet, receding murmurs rhyme

The burden of the April time;

And throbbing like a glad refrain,

Now far, now full, now far again,

The freshened breeze

Blows gaily, bringing pure and clear

The fitful, tinkling cadences.

But listen! faint, from out the sheer

Deep borders of the morning sky,

Slips down the distance-softened cry

Of shy wild geese that northward fly;

It vibrates nearer, and more near,

— And see!

There! wheeling into sight,

Far as the vision may descry.

A level-winged advancing “V,”

They keep their swift, unswerving flight.

North, north, beyond that scudding fleece

Of tiny clouds, like wilder geese,

That join their ranks, and journey, too,

On,— on,— into the farthest blue.

Then, from the boundless space above,

I drop my dazzled eyes to view

The soft field-grass and meadow-rue,

The restful, brown earth, that I love.

A trick of blinding sun, maybe,

That halo on the hills may prove —

And yet, they are so dear to me,

The golden glory that they wear

Is like none other anywhere,

And, in my heart, I hold it true.

Though, surely, what least loving eye

Could wander up the river there,

And see aught otherwise than I?

Or could deny

That yonder little glimpse is fair?

The slender point of jutting land

Where, faintly burgeoning anew

With rounds of downy buds, there stand

A score of water-willow trees

In clustered tufts, and twinkling through,

Across the stream, beside of these,

A line of shining yellow light;

And half in sight,

And hidden half, upon the right,

By wild red-sumac shrubberies,

A windmill, rising tall and white,

Slow turning in the breeze.

And then beyond — but how express,

What word in any tongue conveys

The depth of dreamy tenderness

That laps, and wraps, and overlays

The far blue hills,

And spills and fills

The valleys with pale purple haze?

O, what sweet syllables confess

The glad heart-happiness that plays

Through all my pulses as I gaze,

And drink the beauty, past all praise —

The old, immortal blessedness

Of April days!