University of Virginia Library

SPRING.

How Solomon, the great wise king,
Welcomed the coming in of Spring,
You in his Bible-song may read.
He tells how flowers adorn the mead,
And how the singing-birds appear
Our hearts and homes again to cheer.
If you would know what the birds say,
While warbling all the livelong day,
Calling and answering one another,
Just as a sister would a brother,
You must hide under hedge or tree,
And be as still as still can be.
If there's a nest and young birds in it,
You'll hardly have to wait a minute
Ere you will see the old one come,
And though before the young seemed dumb
They'll all cry out, “Tweet, tweet, tweet,”
Knowing there's something good to eat;
And you'll see all the noisy brood
Gaping at once round her for food.
One glutton cries out, “Now me, now me,”
Although he knows he's had his tea;
Then the old bird says, “Let me see!
You, sir, I know, have twice been fed,
So must creep back again to bed;
You've only had one little fly;
Eat this and then go to ‘bye-bye.’
And you that are so very small
Have not yet had a taste at all;
But since that you so patient wait
I'll just fly back to yonder gate,
Where I saw a whole swarm of flies
All nice and fat, and such a size!
And these I'll bring you home to eat,
For you deserve the richest treat.”
The little bird says, “Tweet, tweet, tweet,”
Which means, “Dear mother, I can wait.”
Then off she flies to the old gate.
And he, most patient of them all,
That pretty bird so good and small,
Sits up and sups with his dear mother;
While in the nest his naughty brother
Who gaped, and cried, “Now me, now me,”
After he'd had so good a tea,
Lies crying and in great distress,
And all through his own greediness.
What pretty flowers does blue-eyed Spring
In her golden basket bring!
Flowers that everywhere are found
By her scattered on the ground.
Bell-shaped snowdrops, pure and white,
That on the dark mould make a light;
Crocuses of many a hue,
March down the borders into view;
While in the garths, and holms, and closes
Peep out the yellow-green primroses,
First beneath the sunny hedgerows,
Where by the stream the flag and sedge grows,
And the deep golden celandine
Like a miser's hoard doth shine.
And then amid dead leaves we meet
The violets that smell so sweet;
And sometimes in places shady,
Hooded like a lovely lady,
We the sheathëd arum find.
Or rocking in the April wind
The rich shot-velvet flowers we see
Of the deep-cupped anemone,
And the breezes pause to dally
With the sweet lilies-of-the-valley
Through which the ground-bee, his way making,
Sets all the ivory bells a-shaking,
Then humming goes where blue-bells stand
And make a little sky-stained land—
Light, dark, and pale, and every hue,
The heavens show in their shifting blue.
The star-shaped daisies, too, are out
O'er which you love to run and shout;
And soon the hawthorn will display
The bead-shaped buds that turn to may;
And o'er our heads laburnums hold
In their green hands thick chains of gold,
And swing them o'er the tiny flowers
That peep on tiptoe through their bowers.
Now labour goes on everywhere,
And sounds of out-door life we hear—
From osier-cutters by the river,
Where sunbeams on the ripples quiver—
From the brown woodman's sturdy stroke
As he fells the broad-branched oak;
And through an opening 'twixt the boughs
We see the milkmaid with her cows,
Who merrily o'er her pail doth sing;
We hear the blacksmith's anvil ring
From the low smithy in the dale;
The cuckoo's song borne on the gale
Comes mingled with the smell of may
From pastures where the lambs are bleating,
From lanes embowered through branches meeting,
Along which children wander singing
While homeward the may blossoms bringing,
Answered by birds from bush and tree
That drown the buzzing of the bee
By their loud-sounding melody.
And in their song you hear them say,
“Oh, isn't this a lovely day!
How sweet the fields smell after rain,
How glad we are Spring's come again!
We are but birds, and can but raise
Our little voices in His praise,
Who even sees the sparrow fall,
And keepeth watch alike o'er all.”