EXILED

Sensing these sweet renewals through the earth,

Where seed and soil most happily conspire

To furnish forth gay rituals of mirth,

Of shaken leaves and pointed blooms of fire,—

I wonder then that thoughtful man, alone,

Walks darkly and all puzzled with a doubt,

Bewildered, and in truth, half-fearful grown

Of wild, wild earth and April's joyous rout.

When we are dust again with soil and seed,

With happy earth through many a happy Spring,

We yet may learn that joy was all our need,—

That man's long thought is but a broken wing,

Of less account, as things may come to pass,

Than Spring's first robin breasting through the grass.