 | Ballads of the North and Other Poems |  |
SPRING.
A voice comes nearer as the fresh winds sweep,And pierces through the dreaming of the Earth,
Wherein as ever, waking or asleep,
She labours still for each revolving birth.
She knows afar the voice, through fields of air,
Of her, before whose coming, blue and fair
The heavens enlarge themselves, and softly meet
With the horizon hills of shadowy blue
Whence run the loosened waters, azure too,
While the blue violets spring to kiss her feet.
Our hearts leap in us, as thou comest, Spring!
Joy runs before thee, thou whose touch can bring
All hidden life to its own conscious hour,
The breaking of its own form to the flower,
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And to the maiden's cheek the quicker blood.
The waving wings of birds in unison
Before thee spread thy secret to the air,
And the winds sweep with it across the bare
Boughs of the forest, till they too bear on
The rushing music of the wild south-west.
O first fair hours, shall not the last be best?
And here they come, the promise of the year,
Young dreams, young hopes, winged from another sphere.
Although their tender feet are on the flowers,
These budding wings must grow with growing hours;
Yet stay with us awhile your fairy flight,
And make the whole way lovely with your light!
| Ballads of the North and Other Poems | |