 | Poems by James Rhoades |  |
129
XV.
[O brave sweet bird! how dost thou lift my heart!]
O brave sweet bird! how dost thou lift my heart!Which singest on thy green bough above the snow—
Thy one green bough, no frost can from thee part—
To the dear Summer-months that lag so slow.
“Be quick, be quick,” thou sayest, and yet I know
Summer will come not for thy cry, but first
Sad nights a-many, and sharp winds to and fro
Devouring, in dark caves of Northland nurs'd;
And hail, not flowers; and ice, not murmuring wave;
Low-flapping clouds for the high-tented heaven—
All these for many a day, ere Spring be given!
Yet Spring must come, thou sayest, sweet bird and brave!
Think, Poet, to sing like this—how great it were!
High-based on living thought, when all things else are bare.
| Poems by James Rhoades | |