University of Virginia Library

The sun burst forth; 'neath sheltering cliff and bank
Lay melting wreaths, which, in its swift retreat,
The army of the snow had left. Whene'er
The gloomy Winter round him called his showers,
Legions of howling winds, and with a cry
Fled to the icy north, the timid Spring
Arose in snowdrops, and the days grew long.
Spring touched the black pots on my window-sill,
And, though begrimed and foul with dust and soot,
The blind plants felt it in their withered veins,
And smiled a sickly green. One Sabbath day,
I left my mother's dwelling in the morn
Behind; the pleading and the scolding bells
Disturbed the peaceful air. “'Tis ever so—
Religion's pure serene is vexed and torn
By raging sectaries. In every street
The brave streams of the proud and gaudy world
Flow to the house of God.—My mother sits
With vanished shapes, and faces of the dead,
And little pattering footsteps: why should she,
A broken heart wrapt up in faded silk,
Mix with the prosperous? 'Tis very well;
Let the white faces creep into their graves,
And leave pomp in the sun.” The shining day
Spread out before me, and I wandered on
Free as those vagrant children of the waste,
Shadow and sunshine. By the sandy banks
Of a shrunk stream, that in unnumbered rills
Tinkled 'tween pebbles and hot glistening stones,
Two green kingfishers played. A travelling shower
O'ertook me on my way; I stood and heard
The skylarks singing in the sunny rain,
With a dim recognition in my heart
As if I knew the meaning of the song
In some forgotten life. I reached a height
Which lay from fairy fern to stately tree
Asleep in sunshine. From its crown I saw
The country fade into the distant sky,
With happy hamlets drowned in apple-bloom,
And ivy-muffled churches still with graves,
And restless fires subdued and tamed by day,
And scattered towns whence came at intervals
Upon the wind, a sweet clear sound of bells;
Through all, a river, like a stream of haze,
Drew its slow length until 'twas lost in woods.
Still as a lichened stone I lay and watched
The lights and shadows on the landscape's face,
The moving cloud that quenched the shining fields,
The gliding sunbeam, the grey trailing shower,
And all the commerce of the earth and sky.
With weary limbs at sunset I returned;
And in the dingy fringes of the town,
The helpless languor of the Sabbath-eve,
The listless groups that stood around the doors,
The silent children, and the smoke that rose
Lazy and spiritless into the air,
Told the world's sinews had been overwrought
And now hung lax and loose. My spirits fell,
Sheer as a skylark when his song is o'er;
I crept into my little twilight room,
And there my day of glory set in tears.