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A CHANT OF SPRING
SONG of dreary days
And ways forlorn,
Before the lambs like lily buds appear
Scampering amid the herds of sanguine, foolish sheep
That through the meadow hoof their way sedately;
When the cold winds of March have called only
A sinorlp ovnw fvnm wnndla~nds far away:
When pines have scarcely dreamed of greener days,
Yet dreaming, thrill with pleasure through their veins,
And softer glow.
Beside our cottage door the rambling rose,
A naked, thorny shoot, has slowly brightened;
Upon the hill, a fire, a ruddy fire of spring,
In stalks of underbrush the landscape lightened.
   There is a music in the wandering air,
When stars are bright and all the world is bare,
A music wild and rare.
   Thrilled to the core, the poplar's single purpose
To reach unto that mystic dome above us;
The bending, waving, undulating motion
And curves that tell of quaint caprice and notion
Of myriad trees; the gracious airs and ways
Of tall centurions, or fantastic plays
Of trees that dance and caper all their days-
All these would still proclaim in forest gloaming,
When stars come out and winds have hushed their moaning-
Would tell how all the forest doth respond.
To strains supernal.
   Sometimes, I think, the air with joy is ringing,
Far overhead the stars still solemn singing,
Forever joy and life their rapture flinging.
See, when the summer time to fullest seeming
The things of earth has brought-
In August days, when incense fills the air,
Of pines and flowers and herbs, like old wine flowing,
From the pure wine press of the wild grape growing in the warm sun:
The loon sends o'er the lake his soft, low call.
The cricket chirps, the lisping katy-did
After a hush begins again in chorus.
Tender, yet rapturous, the music swells.
Joy takes his lordly flight
Across the moor, and in the darksome glen
Makes pure the night.
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