 | [May, in Through the Year with Poets] May |  |
24
EXPECTATION.
White-flowered orchards where young buds unfold,Sweet-smelling, shining, shower-crumpled grass,
Rainbows above where late the rain-cloud was,
Now a bright harmless heap of vapory gold.
The sharp rim of the slim new moon on high
Is cut against the rosy western sky;
25
On the green earth as on the smooth light stream,
Wherein the double sky and landscape gleam
With every cloud the sunshine smites aloft.
Ah! restless, fond, insatiate human heart,
Filled full with all the pleasure of the spring,
Yet holding it but as a little thing,
And pressing forward, yearning to take part
In something wider, larger, fairer still,
Nor noting beauty of sky, field or hill.
The clear horizon, the far-shining sea
Invite and beckon: all the bloom and glow
Seem but an earnest of what time will show,
And the pulse leaps with wild expectancy.
Emma Lazarus.
| [May, in Through the Year with Poets] May | |