Spring Song

Is it the Spring?
    Or are the birds all wrong
That play on flute and viol,
    A thousand strong,
In minstrel galleries
    Of the long deep wood,
Epiphanies
    Of bloom and bud.

Grave minstrels those,
    Of deep responsive chant;
But see how yonder goes,
    Dew-drunk, with giddy slant,
Yon Shelley-lark,
    And hark!
Him on the giddy brink
    Of pearly heaven
His fairy anvil clink.

Or watch, in fancy,
    How the brimming note
Falls, like a string of pearls,
    From out his heavenly throat;
Or like a fountain
    In Hesperides,
Raining its silver rain,
    In gleam and chime,
On backs of ivory girls -
    Twice happy rhyme!

Ah, none of these
    May make it plain,
No im...

When winter covering all the ground
Hides every sign of Spring, sir.
However you may look around,
Pray what will then you sing, sir?

The Spring was here last year I know,
And many bards did flute, sir;
I shall not fear a little snow
Forbid me from my lute, sir.

If words grow dull and rhymes grow rare,
I'll sing of Spring's farewell, sir.
For every season steals an air,
Which has a Springtime smell, sir.

But if upon the other side,
With passionate longing burning,
Will seek the half unjeweled tide,
And sing of Spring's returning.

A bee that was searching for sweets one day
Through the gate of a rose garden happened to stray.
In the heart of a rose he hid away,
And forgot in his bliss the light of day,
As sipping his honey he buzzed in song;
Though day was waning, he lingered long,
For the rose was sweet, so sweet.

A robin sits pluming his ruddy breast,
And a madrigal sings to his love in her nest:
"Oh, the skies they are blue, the fields are green,
And the birds in your nest will soon be seen!"
She hangs on his words with a thrill of love,
And chirps to him as he sits above
For the song is sweet, so sweet.

A maiden was out on a summer's day
With the winds and the waves and the flowers at play;
And she met with a youth of gentle air,
With the light of the sunshine on hi...

Oh, the day has set me dreaming
In a strange, half solemn way
Of the feelings I experienced
On another long past day,--
Of the way my heart made music
When the buds began to blow,
And o' little Lucy Landman
Whom I loved long years ago.

It 's in spring, the poet tells us,
That we turn to thoughts of love,
And our hearts go out a-wooing
With the lapwing and the dove.
But whene'er the soul goes seeking
Its twin-soul, upon the wing,
I 've a notion, backed by mem'ry,
That it's love that makes the spring.

I have heard a robin singing
When the boughs were brown and bare,
And the chilling hand of winter
Scattered jewels through the air.
And in spite of dates and seasons,
It was always spring, I know,
When I loved Lucy Landman<...

When the bees are humming in the honeysuckle vine
And the summer days are in their bloom,
Then my love is deepest, oh, dearest heart of mine,
When the bees are humming in the honeysuckle vine.

When the winds are moaning o'er the meadows chill and gray,
And the land is dim with winter gloom,
Then for thee, my darling, love will have its way,
When the winds are moaning o'er the meadows chill and gray.

In the vernal dawning with the starting of the leaf,
In the merry-chanting time of spring,
Love steals all my senses, oh, the happy-hearted thief!
In the vernal morning with the starting of the leaf.

Always, ever always, even in the autumn drear,
When the days are sighing out their grief,
Thou art still my darling, dearest of the dear,
Always, ever alw...

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...