The swallow is flying over,
But he will not come to me;
He flits, my daring rover,
From land to land, from sea to sea;
Where hot Bermuda’s reef
Its barrier lifts to fortify the shore,
Above the surf’s wild roar
He darts as swiftly o’er,—
But he who heard his cry of spring
Hears that no more, heeds not his wing.
...
Tossing his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles,
Lion-like, March cometh in, hoarse, with tempestuous breath,
Through all the moaning chimneys, and thwart all the hollows and angles
Round the shuddering house, threating of winter and death.
But in my heart I feel the life of the wood and the meadow
Thrilling the pulses that own kindred...
It is in Winter that we dream of Spring;
For all the barren bleakness and the cold,
The longing fancy sees the frozen mould
Decked with sweet blossoming.
Though all the birds be silent,—though
The fettered stream’s soft voice be still,
And on the leafless bough the snow
Be rested, marble-like and chill,—
Yet will the...
The puritan Spring Beauties stood freshly clad for church;
A Thrush, white-breasted, o’er them sat singing on his perch.
“Happy be! for fair are ye!” the gentle singer told them,
But presently a buff-coat Bee came booming up to scold them.
“Vanity, oh, vanity!
Young maids, beware of vanity!”
Grumbled out the buff-coat Bee,...
Was there another Spring than this?
I half remember, through the haze
Of glimmering nights and golden days,
A broken-pinioned birdling’s note,
An angry sky, a sea-wrecked boat,
A wandering through rain-beaten ways!
Lean closer, love—I have thy kiss!
Was there another Spring than this?
Make me over, mother April,
When the sap begins to stir!
When thy flowery hand delivers
All the mountain-prisoned rivers,
And thy great heart beats and quivers
To revive the days that were,
Make me over, mother April,
When the sap begins to stir!
Take my dust and all my dreaming,
Count my heart-beats one by one,
...
From the Greek by Andrew Lang
NOW the bright crocus flames, and now
The slim narcissus takes the rain,
And, straying o’er the mountain’s brow,
The daffodillies bud again.
The thousand blossoms wax and wane
On wold, and heath, and fragrant bough,
But fairer than the flowers art thou,
Than any growth of hill or plain...
When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces,
The mother of months in meadow or plain
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain;
And the brown bright nightingale amorous
Is half assuaged for Itylus,
For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces;
The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.
...
Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king;
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing,
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
The palm and may make country-houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay,
Cuckoo...
From the French by Henry F. Cary
GOD shield ye, heralds of the spring!
Ye faithful swallows, fleet of wing,
Houps, cuckoos, nightingales,
Turtles, and every wilder bird,
That make your hundred chirpings heard
Through the green woods and dales.
God shield ye, Easter daisies all,
Fair roses, buds, and blossoms small,...
