The Miracle of Spring.

What touch is like the Spring's?
By dainty fingerings
    Such rare delight to give,
    'Tis luxury to live
Amid florescent things.

Through weary months of snow
When Boreas swept low,
    How many an anxious hour
    We watched one little flower,
And tried to make it grow;

And thrilled with ecstasy
When, half distrustfully,
    A timid bud appeared,
    A tender scion reared
In window greenery.

But lo! Spring's wealth of bloom
And richness of perfume
    Comes as by miracle;
    Then why not possible
Within a curtained room?

Ah, no! that everywhere
The earth is passing fair,
    And strange new life hath caught,
    Is but the marvel wrought
By sunlight, rain, and air.

Hattie Howard

Hattie Howard is recognized for her significant contributions to 19th-century American poetry. Her work, characterized by its wit and lyrical quality, often explored themes of nature, love, and social issues. She had a unique voice that resonated with many of her contemporaries and continues to be appreciated for its depth and artistry.

Hattie Howard

Lightning-bugs.

Hattie Howard, Simple Poetry

The Woods.

Hattie Howard, Simple Poetry

Supplicating.

Hattie Howard, Simple Poetry

The Taxidermist.

Hattie Howard, Simple Poetry

English

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Blossom-time.

    Yes, it is drawing nigh -
    The time of blossoming;
The waiting heart beats stronger
    With every breath of Spring,
The days are growing longer;
    While happy hours go by
    As if on zephyr wing.

    A wealth of mellow light
    Reflected from the skies
The hill and vale is flooding;
    Still in their leafless guise
The Jacqueminots are budding,
    Creating new delight
    By promise of surprise.

    The air is redolent
    As ocean breezes are
From spicy islands blowing,
    Or groves of Malabar
Where sandal-wood is growing;
    Or sweet, diffusive scent,
    From fragrant attar-jar.

    Just so is loveliness
    Renewed from year to year;
And thus emotions tender,
    Born of the atmosphe...

Hattie Howard

The Beauty of Nature.

Oh bud and leaf and blossom,
    How beautiful they are!
Than last year's vernal season
    'Tis lovelier by far;
This earth was never so enchanting
    Nor half so bright before -
But so I've rhapsodized, in springtime,
    For forty years or more.

What luxury of color
    On shrub and plant and vine,
From pansies' richest purple
    To pink of eglantine;
From buttercups to "johnny-jump-ups,"
    With deep cerulean eyes,
Responding to their modest surname
    In violet surprise.

Sometimes I think the sunlight
    That gilds the emerald hills,
And makes Aladdin dwellings
    Of dingy domiciles,
Is surplus beauty overflowing
    That Heaven cannot hold -
The topaz glitter, or the jacinth,
    The glare of streets o...

Hattie Howard

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

An Ode To Spring (To Grant And Nellie Allen)

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...

Richard Le Gallienne

Spring.

Oh! the world looks glad, for the spring has smiled,
And the birds are come with their "wood-notes wild,"
And the waters leap with a joyous sound,
Like freedom's voice when a chain's unbound.

And soon with its bloom will the earth be gay,
For the air is bland as the breath of May;
Sunshine and buds and all glorious things
Will give to the hours their downiest wings.

Nature has burst from her wintry tomb,
Wreathed with the glory of brightening bloom;
Fetters of frost-work are gently unbound,
Blossoms and flowers are clustering round.

Bosoms that know not the blighting of care,
Sunshine and gladness may smilingly wear;
But for the broken and desolate heart
Springtime, alas! has no balm to impart.

Tones that are hushed it awakens no more;<...

Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney

Spring

Frost-locked all the winter,
Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits,
What shall make their sap ascend
That they may put forth shoots?
Tips of tender green,
Leaf, or blade, or sheath;
Telling of the hidden life
That breaks forth underneath,
Life nursed in its grave by Death.

Blows the thaw-wind pleasantly,
Drips the soaking rain,
By fits looks down the waking sun:
Young grass springs on the plain;
Young leaves clothe early hedgerow trees;
Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits,
Swollen with sap put forth their shoots;
Curled-headed ferns sprout in the lane;
Birds sing and pair again.

There is no time like Spring,
When life's alive in everything,
Before new nestlings sing,
Before cleft swallows speed their journey back
A...

Christina Georgina Rossetti