University of Virginia Library

Spring's pilot, and her nimblest-wingèd darling,
Despite the arrowy-flighted Swallow
That in thy wake doth follow,
To rob thee of renown, intrepid Starling!
Full weary of old Winter, sick of sorrow,
As I lay a-drowsing in the dark at dawn of day,
Seeking to shut from sight a sunless morrow,
And sueing to assist me flitting Sleep, that would not stay,
Out of dim lands remote
Came a hoarse but happy note;
And then a scatter'd rustling loud beyond the lattice eaves
Of jostled wings, a-riot in the rare and rainy leaves.
Surely, surely, saucy angel
Of the virgin Spring's evangel,
'Twas the sound of thee and thine,
Singing songs yet somewhat hoarser
For the sea-wind and the brine
Breath'd and braved by each precursor
Of May's azure and sunshine;
Songs of triumph ne'ertheless,
And tumultuous mirthfulness,
Proclaiming prophets come
Here, where cold April grieves
Among her few wet leaves,
To build in low-bent apple boughs their little breezy home.

Yet can I not divine
By any outward sign,
Blithe bird whose brimful song the unsteady wind spills o'er the lea,
For what reason thou hast sought
A land so void of aught
Which me, had I thy wings, could 'lure its visitor to be.
Is it because thou hast
Such a kindness for the past
That in all remember'd places there is pleasantness for thee?
Or rather, as I deem,
Prophet of bud and beam,
That thou such insight keen
Hast into things unseen
That beauty yet unveil'd thou do'st in vernal visions see?
I, at least, thy voice believing,
And, in responsive mood,
Religiously receiving
Its prophecies of good,
All the morn long have been roaming
The wet field and wintry wood,
The burthen of an old song humming:—
‘The starlings are come! and merry May,
And June, and the white thorn, and the hay,
And the violet, and then the rose, and all sweet things are coming!’

But O ill-welcom'd bird!
Thy most impassion'd lays
By heedless ears are heard.
Thou comest before thy time, and unattended.
The sluggard Spring delays
To justify thy word;
And rancorous Winter stays
To wreak on thee the wrath of frosts and rains offended;
Whilst thou of sunny days
Still singest, undeterr'd
By scorn, or stinted praise,
Befriending thus a land that leaves thee unbefriended.
Wherefore to me thou art
Dearer a thousand times
Than other singers are.
For 'tis not careful art,
Nor yet melodious rhymes,
'Tis courage that is rare.
Courage, before Today,
Upon his tyrant throne,
To make, without dismay,
Tomorrow's mission known;
To preach the unpraised good
By time not yet asserted,
And, tho' misunderstood,
Remain undisconcerted.

And I, O lyrist lone,
Because I am not one
Of those who share, or swell, the praise
Bestow'd on songs of softer tone
But meaner purpose, needs must raise
One note, tho' rude as is thine own,
And heard by few, and hail'd by none,
To welcome thy courageous lays,
Whose mirth, on rainy breezes blown,
The meed of May's
Blithe homage pays
To April's churlish sun.
Envy not thou Cëyx, or Halcyon,
Their sultry seas, fair-meadow'd lands of fable,
And foamless isles, the tempest strikes not on,
That sleep in harbours green and hospitable;
For thou, within thyself, despite foul weather,
Hast golden calms and glories
Like windless lights where wizards meet together
On stormy promontories.
O leave to the luxurious Nightingale
Her amorous revels and imbower'd delights
Where, over lush rose leaves the balmy gale
Is breathing low thro' blue midsummer nights.
Thine is the bardic chant, the battle strain,
The strenuous impulse thine,
Antagonizing wind and sleety rain
In the tough-headed pine.
Leave to the Lark his lucid chariotings
And mirth Memnonian, when auroral skies
With rorid azure bathe his rapturous wings.
Thy realm beyond tomorrow's orient lies,
Safe from the reach of this anarchic time,
Where unreveal'd primroses,
And many a lurking love, and budding rhyme
Each note of thine discloses.
And for that reason thou
Hast little heed, I trow,
Of old spleenful Winter scattering
His spent snows against thy wing.
Thee the sharp and churlish chattering
Of a half-discrownèd king
Cannot vex or chafe:
Nor the light and timid swallow,
Proffering his friendship shallow
When his friend is safe.
A cautious after-comer,
He comes of common kind,
Secure of sun and summer,
And very sure to find,
What thou hast never known,
The fame that lags behind
The first who flies alone.
Thy friends are yet unborn;
The earliest violet,
The first bud on the thorn,
The first wan cowslip, wet
With tears of the first morn
That doth such joys beget.
Thy foes are yet a-dying;
Ragged-skirted rains,
Winds at random flying
Fast with cloudy manes,
And the last snows, lying
Lost on chilly plains.
Grief and Joy together
Colloquize with thee:
Sad and sunny weather
Shift around the tree
Where, not heeding either,
Thou do'st carol free
Such brave song as neither
(Harshest tho' it be)
Critics' scorn can wither
Not their praises fee.
A music over-winging
On laughter-lifted pinions
Earth's bleakness and despair,
Like old Amphion's singing,
To raise serene dominions
And fashion from void air,
Stirr'd by the nimbly-sounding minions
Of its mysterious mandate, everywhere
Those blossomy battlements,
And florid tents,
Where, in due time, shall dwell
All the delicious sights, and sounds, and scents
Of Spring's green citadel.