Poems by William Wetmore Story

The Spring has passed this way—Look! where she trod
The daring crocus sprang up through the sod
To greet her coming with glad heedlessness,
Scarce waiting to put on its leafy dress,
But bright and bold in its brave nakedness—
And further on—mark!—o'er this gentle rise
She must have paused, for soft anemones
Are trembling to the wind, couched low among
The fresh green grasses that so lush have sprung
Where the hid runnel with low tinkling tongue
Babbles its secret troubles—Here she stopped
A longer while, and on this rising sweep,
As pensively she lingered, see, she dropped
A knot of love-sick violets from her breast,
Which, ere she threw them down, she must have kissed,
For still the fragrance of her breath they keep—
And look!—here, too, her passing robes have brushed,
Where this white leafless almond faintly blushed
To greet her—and in blossoms burst as she
Swept by it gladsomely and gracefully.

173

Where is she now? Gone! Vain it were to try
To overtake her—Here then let us lie
On this green slope and weave a wreath, and sing
With our best skill the joyous praise of Spring,
Thankful for these sweet gifts she left behind—
Flowers, grass, and showery perfume of the wind.

Pursuit is useless—she like all things fair
Will not be hunted down into her lair
And caught and prisoned—Let us not be rude,
Nor seek into her presence to intrude,
But praise her in the distance!—then perchance
She may not flee away with wingèd feet,
But pause and backward cast a favoring glance,
And waft a fragrance to us rare and sweet—
Too eager, we our present joy may miss
In the vain chase of an imagined bliss,
The Ideal joy no human hand can seize,
The dream that ever lures and vanishes.

Rude blustering March has gone to sleep to-day,
And left the world for Spring therein to play
And wander as it will through grove and dell
To work her sweet and gentle miracle
And bring the dead to life.—But who can tell
When jealous March may wake and wreak his wrath
Upon the dear intruder, blind her path
With stinging sleet, pelt her with rattling hail,
Drive the swollen torrent madly down the vale,
Scatter her blossoms, blast her tender crops,

174

Roar up the hill-sides, grasping by their tops
The shuddering trees, and screaming through the grove
Distort with passion its calm face of love?
Should he but wake and with a voice of dread
Come trampling on the thunderous clouds o'erhead
To shake the world and flash his startling blades
Of lightning out,—swift as in Enna's vale
When Proserpine slow loitering through the glades
Beheld black Pluto with his face of bale
And dropped her flowers and fled,—so in affright
Spring shuddering would turn and flee from sight.

But truce to idle fears,—in these blue skies
No thunder threatens,—all is calm and still
As a child sleeping, and this shadowy hill
Is full of glancing lights and perfumed breath,
And the green springing grass is fresh beneath
Our wandering feet. Not even Paradise
Was sweeter, fairer, ere the thought of death
Had darkened o'er it, and the world was new,
And Love without a fear its gladness knew.

The day is passing—let us own its spell
Calm as the trees that feel within them swell
The secret thrill and currents of the spring,
And outward yearn in leaves and blossoming—
Content to take what nature freely gives,—
Love for life's blossoms, gentle thoughts for leaves.

University of Virginia Library

PRIMAVERA.