4.
The snows are melted; but a waste of waters
Lies o'er the landscape, 'neath the skies unlit;
The heavy hearts of Adam's sons and daughters
Still in the ark of expectation sit.
Hidden are the heavens by the mists upsteaming
From earth's o'erflooded visage far and nigh;
The season 'tis of sad and darkling dreaming,
Of speechless yearning for the unclouded sky.
Our winter-straitened souls, like Noah's raven,
Forth through the brume their idle wishes send,
In quest of Hope's well-nigh despaired-of haven
To roam the wayless world from end to end.
No sign to see is for the heart that yearneth
Of Winter ebbing from the waking earth;
Faith's dove for evermore to us returneth,
No footing finding in the watery dearth.
But forth again and yet again we send it,
In quest of Spring's prophetic olive-leaf,
Hoping it back to us at last shall wend it,
With the green token of determined grief,
The token of the term of Winter-waiting,
Of Spring, consoler of our doubts and fears,
The token of the long-desired abating
Of all the troubled waters of our tears.
Who knows? The tale of Time alone can show it.
Nay, by the writ of things bygone, some day
Spring will not come again, as now we know it,
And Winter will the world for ever sway.
Yet, long ere this betideth, shall we, sleeping,
Have passed away unto the Land of Peace,
Where there is neither Winter neither weeping,
Laughter nor Spring, but silence there and cease.
