Spring's Saraband

Over the hills of April

With soft winds hand in hand,

Impassionate and dreamy-eyed,

Spring leads her saraband.

Her garments float and gather

And swirl along the plain,

Her headgear is the golden sun,

Her cloak the silver rain.

With color and with music,

With perfumes and with pomp,

By meadowland and upland,

Through pasture, wood, and swamp,

With promise and enchantment

Leading her mystic mime,

She comes to lure the world anew

With joy as old as time.

Quick lifts the marshy chorus

To transport, trill on trill;

There's not a rod of stony ground

Unanswering on the hill.

The brooks and little rivers

Dance down their wild ravines,

And children in the city squares

Keep time, to tambourines.

The bluebird in the orchard

Is lyrical for her,

The blackbird with his meadow pipe

Sets all the wood astir,

The hooded white spring-beauties

Are curtsying in the breeze,

The blue hepaticas are out

Under the chestnut trees.

The maple buds make glamor,

Viburnum waves its bloom,

The daffodils and tulips

Are risen from the tomb.

The lances of Narcissus

Have pierced the wintry mold;

The commonplace seems paradise

Through veils of greening gold.

O heart, hear thou the summons,

Put every grief away,

When all the motley masques of earth

Are glad upon a day.

Alack, that any mortal

Should less than gladness bring

Into the choral joy that sounds

The saraband of spring!