The professor and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

O subtle and secret change, that over the world art sped,
Wafted out of the South on the warm wind's delicate wing;
See, my metallic worm uplifts his elated head,
Crawls in his glassy prison, and throbs with the pulse of spring.

Ay, there is something more than the metrical march of days!
Life, like a drowsy sleeper, is restless and fain would wake;

And the shy heart leans and listens to hear what the spring wind says,
When the low-hung mist dissolves, and the infinite glories break.

So to my garden I creep, like a truant boy to his game,
Snatching a heightened joy from duty that waits to be done;
And a sudden hope is born, and leaps in my heart like flame,
Watching my springing bulbs, and telling them one by one.

Hooded and muffled close, they creep, like ghosts, to the day,
Parting the wind-dried crust, their desolate winter bed,

And lo, in the shattered urn, so weathered and old and grey,
A delicate snowdrop pushes, and droops her serious head.