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| THERE ’s nothing so sweet as a morning in May, | |
| And few things so fair as the gleam of glad water; | |
| Spring leaps from the brow of old Winter to-day, | |
| Full-formed, like the fabled Olympian’s daughter. | |
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| A breath out of heaven came down in the night, | 5 |
| Dispelling the gloom of the sullen northeasters; | |
| The air is all balm, and the lake is as bright | |
| As some bird in brave plumage that ripples and glisters. | |
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| The enchantment is broken which bound her so long, | |
| And Beauty, that slumbered, awakes and remembers; | 10 |
| Love bursts into being, joy breaks into song, | |
| In a glory of blossoms life flames from its embers. | |
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| I row by steep woodlands, I rest on my oars | |
| Under banks deep-embroidered with grass and young clover; | |
| Far round, in and out, wind the beautiful shores,— | 15 |
| The lake in the midst, with the blue heavens over. | |
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| The world in its mirror hangs dreamily bright; | |
| The patriarch clouds in curled raiment, that lazily | |
| Lift their bare foreheads in dazzling white light, | |
| In that deep under-sky glimmer softly and hazily. | 20 |
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| Far over the trees, or in glimpses between, | |
| Peer the steeples and half-hidden roofs of the village. | |
| Here lie the broad slopes in their loveliest green; | |
| There, crested with orchards or checkered with tillage. | |
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| There the pines, tall and black, in the blue morning air; | 25 |
| The warehouse of ice, a vast windowless castle; | |
| The ash and the sycamore, shadeless and bare; | |
| The elm-boughs in blossom, the willows in tassel. | |
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| In golden effulgence of leafage and blooms, | |
| Far along, overleaning, the sunshiny willows | 30 |
| Advance like a surge from the grove’s deeper glooms,— | |
| The first breaking swell of the summer’s green billows. | |
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| Scarce a tint upon hornbeam or sumach appears, | |
| The arrowhead tarries, the lily still lingers; | |
| But the cat-tails are piercing the wave with their spears, | 35 |
| And the fern is unfolding its infantile fingers. | |
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| Down through the dark evergreens slants the mild light: | |
| I know every cove, every moist indentation, | |
| Where mosses and violets ever invite | |
| To some still unexperienced, fresh exploration. | 40 |
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| The mud-turtle, sunning his shield on a log, | |
| Slides off with a splash as my paddle approaches; | |
| Beside the green island I silence the frog, | |
| In warm, sunny shallows I startle the roaches. | |
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| I glide under branches where rank above rank | 45 |
| From the lake grow the trees, bending over its bosom; | |
| Or lie in my boat on some flower-starred bank, | |
| And drink in delight from each bird-song and blossom. | |
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| Above me the robins are building their nest; | |
| The finches are here,—singing throats by the dozen; | 50 |
| The catbird, complaining, or mocking the rest; | |
| The wing-spotted blackbird, sweet bobolink’s cousin. | |
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| With rapture I watch, as I loiter beneath, | |
| The small silken tufts on the boughs of the beeches, | |
| Each leaf-cluster parting its delicate sheath, | 55 |
| As it gropingly, yearningly opens and reaches; | |
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| Like soft-wingéd things coming forth from their shrouds. | |
| The bees have forsaken the maples’ red flowers | |
| And gone to the willows, whose luminous clouds | |
| Drop incense and gold in impalpable showers. | 60 |
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| The bee-peopled odorous boughs overhead, | |
| With fragrance and murmur the senses delighting; | |
| The lake-side, gold-laced with the pollen they shed | |
| At the touch of a breeze or a small bird alighting; | |
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| The myriad tremulous pendants that stream | 65 |
| From the hair of the birches,—O group of slim graces, | |
| That see in the water your silver limbs gleam, | |
| And lean undismayed over infinite spaces!— | |
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| The bold dandelions embossing the grass; | |
| On upland and terrace the fruit-gardens blooming; | 70 |
| The wavering, winged, happy creatures that pass,— | |
| White butterflies flitting, and bumblebees booming; | |
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| The crowing of cocks and the bellow of kine; | |
| Light, color, and all the delirious lyrical | |
| Bursts of bird-voices; life filled with new wine,— | 75 |
| Every motion and change in this beautiful miracle, | |
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| Springtime and Maytime,—revive in my heart | |
| All the springs of my youth, with their sweetness and splendor: | |
| O years, that so softly take wing and depart! | |
| O perfume! O memories pensive and tender! * * * * * | 80 |
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