| |
| THE POET stood in the sombre town, | |
| And spake to his heart, and said, | |
| “O weary prison, devised by man! | |
| O seasonless place, and dead!” | |
| His heart was sad, for afar he heard | 5 |
| The sound of the Spring’s light tread. | |
| |
| He thought he saw in the pearly east | |
| The pale March sun arise, | |
| The happy housewife beneath the thatch, | |
| With hand above her eyes, | 10 |
| Look out to the cawing rooks, that built | |
| So near to the quiet skies. | |
| |
| Out of the smoke, and noise, and sin | |
| The heart of the Poet cried: | |
| “O God! but to be Thy laborer there, | 15 |
| On the gentle hill’s green side, | |
| To leave the struggle of want and wealth, | |
| And the battle of lust and pride!” | |
| |
| He bent his ear, and he heard afar | |
| The growing of tender things, | 20 |
| And his heart broke forth with the travailing earth, | |
| And shook with the tremulous wings | |
| Of sweet brown birds, that had never known | |
| The dirge of the city’s sins. | |
| |
| And later,—when all the earth was green | 25 |
| As the Garden of the Lord, | |
| Primroses opening their innocent face, | |
| Cowslips scattered abroad, | |
| Bluebells mimicking summer skies, | |
| And the song of the thrush outpoured,— | 30 |
| |
| The changeless days were so sad to him, | |
| That the Poet’s heart beat strong, | |
| And he struggled as some poor caged lark, | |
| And he cried: “How long, how long? | |
| I have missed a spring I can never see, | 35 |
| And the singing of birds is gone!” | |
| |
| But when the time of the roses came, | |
| And the nightingale hushed her lay, | |
| The Poet, still in the dusty town, | |
| Went quietly on his way— | 40 |
| A poorer poet by just one Spring, | |
| And a richer man by one suffering. | |
| |
