Spring
Spring, with that nameless pathos in the airWhich dwells with all things fair,Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain,Is with us once again.
Out in the lonely woods the jasmine burnsIts fragrant lamps, and turnsInto a royal court with green festoonsThe banks of dark lagoons.
In the deep heart of every forest treeThe blood is all aglee,And there’s a look about the leafless bowersAs if they dreamed of flowers.
Yet still on every side we trace the handOf Winter in the land,Save where the maple reddens on the lawn,Flushed by the season’s dawn;
Or where, like those strange semblances we findThat age to childhood bind,The elm puts on, as if in Nature’s scorn,The brown of Autumn corn.
As yet the turf is dark, although you knowThat, not a span below,A thousand germs are groping through the gloom,And soon will burst their tomb.
Already, here and there, on frailest stemsAppear some azure gems,Small as might deck, upon a gala day,The forehead of a fay.
In gardens you may note amid the dearthThe crocus breaking earth;And near the snowdrop’s tender white and green,The violet in its screen.
But many gleams and shadows need must passAlong the budding grass,And weeks go by, before the enamored SouthShall kiss the rose’s mouth.
Still there’s a sense of blossoms yet unbornIn the sweet airs of morn;One almost looks to see the very streetGrow purple at his feet.
At times a fragrant breeze comes floating by,And brings, you know not why,A feeling as when eager crowds awaitBefore a palace gate
Some wondrous pageant; and you scarce would start,If from a beech’s heart,A blue-eyed Dryad, stepping forth, should say,“Behold me! I am May!”
Ah! who would couple thoughts of war and crimeWith such a blessëd time!Who in the west wind’s aromatic breathCould hear the call of Death!
Yet not more surely shall the Spring awakeThe voice of wood and brake,Than she shall rouse, for all her tranquil charms,A million men to arms.
There shall be deeper hues upon her plainsThan all her sunlit rains,And every gladdening influence around,Can summon from the ground.
Oh! standing on this desecrated mould,Methinks that I behold,Lifting her bloody daisies up to God,Spring kneeling on the sod,
And calling, with the voice of all her rills,Upon the ancient hillsTo fall and crush the tyrants and the slavesWho turn her meads to graves.