| |
| SPRING, with that nameless pathos in the air | |
| Which 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 burns | 5 |
| Its fragrant lamps, and turns | |
| Into a royal court with green festoons | |
| The banks of dark lagoons. | |
| |
| In the deep heart of every forest tree | |
| The blood is all aglee, | 10 |
| And there ’s a look about the leafless bowers | |
| As if they dreamed of flowers. | |
| |
| Yet still on every side we trace the hand | |
| Of Winter in the land, | |
| Save where the maple reddens on the lawn, | 15 |
| Flushed by the season’s dawn; | |
| |
| Or where, like those strange semblances we find | |
| That age to childhood bind, | |
| The elm puts on, as if in Nature’s scorn, | |
| The brown of autumn corn. | 20 |
| |
| As yet the turf is dark, although you know | |
| That, not a span below, | |
| A thousand germs are groping through the gloom, | |
| And soon will burst their tomb. | |
| |
| In gardens you may note amid the dearth, | 25 |
| The crocus breaking earth; | |
| And near the snowdrop’s tender white and green, | |
| The violet in its screen. | |
| |
| But many gleams and shadows need must pass | |
| Along the budding grass, | 30 |
| And weeks go by, before the enamored South | |
| Shall kiss the rose’s mouth. | |
| |
| Still there ’s a sense of blossoms yet unborn | |
| In the sweet airs of morn; | |
| One almost looks to see the very street | 35 |
| Grow purple at his feet. | |
| |
| At times a fragrant breeze comes floating by, | |
| And brings, you know not why, | |
| A feeling as when eager crowds await | |
| Before a palace gate | 40 |
| |
| 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!” | |
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