Flower o' the thorn :: :: University of Virginia Library

THE Spring hath over the grey old mountains drawn
Its glamorous webs of wit-bewildering gladness;
Each hillside slope, each upland lea and lawn
Is drunken with a Dionysiac madness.

A surge of blossom overbrims each crest;
Each Alp flings back the flower-foam to its neighbour:
The hills seem Maenads for the mysteries drest;
One hearkens after cymbal-clash and tabor.

What heart so hard but, when the mountains cast
Their winter-slough, like them, must doff its sorrow
And garb, forgetful of the piteous Past,
Itself in gladness for the summer morrow?

Although, like mine, his head, erst brown, be grey,
Who can, once seen, that sight without a fellow
Forget, the mountains in the flush of May
Belted with gentian blue and jonquil yellow?

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Yet, not alone when Bacchus from the East
Leads back the Nymphs, the Satyrs and Silenus,
My heart with them is in their flowering feast.
Whether in the month of Mars or that of Venus,

Whether in middle Spring or Summer late,
They garb themselves in vests of various glory
And with their rapturous riot celebrate
Life's transient triumph over Winter hoary;

Whether in each upland wood, for June newborn,
The lily of the valley's spathe uncloses
Or in the month of golden-glittering corn
Each pass is purple with the Alpine roses;

Whether narcissus silvers weald and wold
Or gentians carpet all the crests with heaven
Or amaryllis floods with fairy gold
The month whose number in the tale is seven;

Whether mild Autumn all the meadows fills
With saffron, careless of the coming severance,
Still to the flowering honour of the hills
My heart goes forth in flames of love and reverence.

Yea, of the mountains still for me, from first
To last, the old saw over all hath meetness;
Like that which cometh of the strong, as erst
Honey of the lion's mouth, there is no sweetness.