TO THE COMING SPRING

Hope and Spring! You are sisters!

In my woodlands

The primroses are peeping

With pale, sweet golden eyes,

In spite of Winter's weeping.

In my woodlands

A thrush has just swung, dipping,

In search of his spring voice;

The trees stand dripping, dripping.

In my woodlands

Harsh Winter coldly shivers;

The windflower, white adventurer,

With hope of springtime quivers.

Soon my woodlands,

Bearing bannerets of Spring,

Will be every moment musical

With birds that, mating, sing.

Hope and Spring! You are sisters!

Oh, Spring! Spring!

Since the Autumn died in glory,

How I have yearned for your coming

Thro’ the cloistral fog-bound days,

Your beauty seemed a story

That would never be told again.

Spring! of the pearly cloud-skies

Soft-curled as a baby's hand,

Turquoise as children's eyes,

Of rainbow-tinctured days

And twittering song of the eaves!

Spring! You desired vision,

The wind in your primrose hair,

Your eyes, too, weepingly ready,

Your face, an anemone fair;

Your train, a burgeoning pattern

Be-sprent with woodland flowers,

Blackthorn, daffies, bluebells,

Marking the flight of our hours.

Spring! Tho’ it still is Winter,

In your mystic sleep you smile,

Yet the primroses and the thrush on wing

Know that even in sleep you sing;

You wondrous, envassaling, longed-for Maid!

Oh! If Death came now I should be afraid:

I have longed for you so the dark months thro’,

That I must see the pulsing glory of you;

And your little hand-maidens in their turn —

For each at their‘ pointed times I yearn.

Virginal snowdrop,

Firstling of Spring!

Crocus, herald of purple and gold,

Wistful windflowers,

Celandined stars,

Every one to my heart I fold.

Snow-soft blackthorn,

You wild, fair sweet,

The scent of you brings

A flutter of wings;

And, almond blossom,

You stole at dawn

The pale dream vest

Of the infant morn.

Of a pool of blue I dream —

Hyacinths, waving in ripples of blue.

There is nothing so fair the whole world thro’

As when quivering sun and quivering wind

Jocundly, joyously, leapingly find

A young green wood in a lazuli dream.

O Spring, if I lay on my dying bed

I should wait to die, till your glory had fled,

I could not go ere the cuckoo had cried

His impudent call to the countryside:

Not till the swallows had loyally come

To their nesting place, in my liefest home,

And then I should wait for the blackbird's note

To leap from his melody-stirring throat.

Ah! And to feel the April rain

Pattering on my face again.

God grant that I do not die in the Spring,

When my whole soul rebels to live and sing;

As we all must die, so let me die

When the grey November fogs are nigh;

Not for a longer space of heaven

Would I forfeit one day, nay, one single hour,

One sweet bird-cry, or one haunting flower,

Of my beautiful, longed-for, fleeting Spring.

Hope and Spring! You are sisters!

‘ Tis Winter still,

But you stir in sleep

Tho’ the cold gusts blow

And the bare trees weep.

But the early primrose

And flitting thrush

Have watched you smile

And have seen you blush.

And tho’ it is long

Ere yet you rise,

And the blue of your glance

Reflect in the skies;

My heart is awake

And ready to sing

The moment you beckon,

Sweet, glorious Spring!

Hope and Spring! You are sisters!