Spring.

On, like a giant, stalketh the strong Wind,
    Wrapping the clouds about him, close and dark,
Rifting Creation's soul, for rage is blind,--
    No pity hath he for the Earth all stark,
Shivering beneath the loose and drifting snow,
A scanty shroud to hide the dead below.

Dead? There is life within the mother's breast--
    So claspeth she her young ones to her heart;--
"The time will come--the time will come--rest! rest!
    Let the mad greybeard to his North depart;
Earth shall arise and mock him in his grave--
Patience a little, let the dotard rave!"

The palsied boughs grew still--there came a pause,
    And Nature's heart scarce beat for listening,
Gazing abroad from all the tempest-flaws,
    With prayerful longing for the saviour Spring;
And when she heard Spring coming up the sky,
Earth rose and threw her shroud off joyfully.

Then she who once had wept like Niobe,
    Beheld her children springing round her feet,
Raising young voices in the early day,
    That never to her ear had seem'd so sweet;
And the soft murmur of a thousand rills
Proclaim'd how Spring had loosed them on the hills.

The bright Evangel came, girt round with mirth,
    And garlanded with youth, and crown'd with flowers
"Awake! arise! ye sons of the new birth,
    And move to the quick measure of the hours!
Summer is coming--go ye forth to meet her,
With sweetest hymeneal songs to greet her."

So there arose straightway a joyous train,
    Gather'd by every nook and hedgerow shade,
That in its passage o'er the verdant plain,
    'Still in the heart a thrilling music made--
Sweet pilgrims they of Love in youth's gay time,
Leading the year on to its golden prime.

The birds sang homage to her evermore;
    And myriad wingèd things, whose radiant dyes
Made sunshine beautiful, still hover'd o'er,
    And bore her witness in the sunlit skies;
And rising from the tomb in glad amaze,
Came many a sainted flower to hymn her praise.

Thus from the streams, and rivers, from the sea,
    From the stirr'd bosom of the mighty hills,
From every glade there rose continually
    A blessing for her, till with joyous thrills
Earth's bosom heaved, and in man's heart a voice
Echoed the anthem--"Spring is come! Rejoice!"

Walter R. Cassels

Walter R. Cassels was a British poet and author primarily known for his collection of religious poetry, "Supernatural Religion" published in the late 19th century. Though the work was initially published anonymously, it sparked considerable controversy and debate over its skeptical views on Christianity and the supernatural. Cassels' style is marked by thought-provoking themes and meticulous craftsmanship, placing him among notable literary figures of his time.

Walter R. Cassels

A Night Scene.

Walter R. Cassels, Simple Poetry

Whither?

Walter R. Cassels, Simple Poetry

Sonnet.

Walter R. Cassels, Simple Poetry

A Dirge.

Walter R. Cassels, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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Spring

Et nunc omnis ager, mine omms parturit arbos;
Nunc frondent sylvæ, nunc formostssimus annus.
Virgil.

Delightful harbinger of joys to come,
Of summer's verdure and a fruitful year,
Who bids thee o'er our northern snow-fields roam,
And make all gladness in thy bright career?
Lo from the Indian Isle thou dost appear,
And dost a thousand pleasures with thee bring:
But why to us art thou so ever dear?
Bearest thou the hope upon thy radiant wing
Of Immortality, O soft, celestial Spring?

Yea, buds and flowers that fade not, they are thine,
And youth-renewing balms; the sear and old
Are young and gladsome at thy touch divine.
Thou breath'st upon the frozen earth behold,
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Hanford Lennox Gordon

Spring

Hark how the merry daffodils,
Fling golden music to the hills!
And how the hills send echoing down,
Through wind-swept turf and moorland brown,
The murmurs of a thousand rills
That mock the song-birds' liquid trills!
The hedge released from Winter's frown
Shews jewelled branch and willow crown;
While all the earth with pleasure trills,
And 'dances with the daffodils.'

Out, out, ye flowers!    Up and shout!
Staid Winter's passed and Spring's about
To lead your ranks in joyous rout;
To string the hawthorn's milky pearls,
And gild the grass with celandine;
To dress the catkins' tasselled curls,
To twist the tendrils of the vine.
She wakes the wind-flower from her sleep,
And lights the woods with April's moon;
The violets lift their heads to p...

Michael Fairless

The Progress Of Spring

The groundflame of the crocus breaks the mould,
Fair Spring slides hither o'er the Southern sea,
Wavers on her thin stem the snowdrop cold
That trembles not to kisses of the bee:
Come Spring, for now from all the dripping eaves
The spear of ice has wept itself away,
And hour by hour unfolding woodbine leaves
O'er his uncertain shadow droops the day.
She comes! The loosen'd rivulets run;
The frost-bead melts upon her golden hair;
Her mantle, slowly greening in the Sun,
Now wraps her close, now arching leaves her bar
To breaths of balmier air;

Up leaps the lark, gone wild to welcome her,
About her glance the tits, and shriek the jays,
Before her skims the jubilant woodpecker,
The linnet's bosom blushes at her gaze,
While round her brows a woodland cul...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

To Spring

Fairest and loveliest of the sun-born train
That o'er the varying year alternate reign;
Whose eye, soft-beaming with thy father's fire,
Fond Nature woos with ever-fresh desire,
Enchanting Spring! O let thy votary's lay
Invite thy angel smile, thy genial sway!

Still do thy beauties, to my partial heart,
Whene'er I gaze, superior joys impart:
When winter's cloudy veil thou draw'st away                            }
And, vested with the sun's mild, dewy ray,                            }
First to the longing earth thy charms thou dost display; }
Or when Aurora, to the lark's gay song,
Full of thy spirit, lightly trips along;
With joyful kisses greets the first-born flowers,
And o'er them breathes thy warm, refreshing showers;
Or when, on shadowy pillow in the west...

Thomas Oldham

Spring Has Come

Intra Muros

The sunbeams, lost for half a year,
Slant through my pane their morning rays;
For dry northwesters cold and clear,
The east blows in its thin blue haze.

And first the snowdrop's bells are seen,
Then close against the sheltering wall
The tulip's horn of dusky green,
The peony's dark unfolding ball.

The golden-chaliced crocus burns;
The long narcissus-blades appear;
The cone-beaked hyacinth returns
To light her blue-flamed chandelier.

The willow's whistling lashes, wrung
By the wild winds of gusty March,
With sallow leaflets lightly strung,
Are swaying by the tufted larch.

The elms have robed their slender spray
With full-blown flower and embryo leaf;
Wide o'er the clasping arch of day
Soars like a cl...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

April

The spring comes slowly up this way.
- Christabel.


T is the noon of the spring-time, yet never a bird
In the wind-shaken elm or the maple is heard;
For green meadow-grasses wide levels of snow,
And blowing of drifts where the crocus should blow;
Where wind-flower and violet, amber and white,
On south-sloping brooksides should smile in the light,
Oer the cold winter-beds of their late-waking roots
The frosty flake eddies, the ice-crystal shoots;
And, longing for light, under wind-driven heaps,
Round the boles of the pine-wood the ground-laurel creeps,
Unkissed of the sunshine, unbaptized of showers,
With buds scarcely swelled, which should burst into flowers
We wait for thy coming, sweet wind of the south!
For the touch of thy light wings, the...

John Greenleaf Whittier