ODE TO THE DAFFODIL.
1.
O love-star of the unbelovèd March,
When, cold and shrill,
Forth flows beneath a low, dim-lighted arch
The wind that beats sharp crag and barren hill,
And keeps unfilmed the lately torpid rill!
2.
A week or e'er
Thou com'st thy soul is round us everywhere;
And many an auspice, many an omen,
Whispers, scarce noted, thou art coming.
Huge, cloudlike trees grow dense with sprays and buds,
And cast a shapelier gloom o'er freshening grass,
And through the fringe of ragged woods
More shrouded sunbeams pass.
Fresh shoots conceal the pollard's spike
The driving rack out-braving;
The hedge swells large by ditch and dike;
And all the uncoloured world is like
A shadow-limned engraving.
3.
Herald and harbinger! with thee
Begins the year's great jubilee!
Of her solemnities sublime
A sacristan whose gusty taper
Flashes through earliest morning vapour,
Thou ring'st dark nocturns and dim prime.
Birds that have yet no heart for song
Gain strength with thee to twitter;
And, warm at last, where hollies throng,
The mirrored sunbeams glitter.
With silk the osier plumes her tendrils thin:
Sweet blasts, though keen as sweet, the blue lake wrinkle;
And buds on leafless boughs begin
Against grey skies to twinkle.
4.
To thee belongs
A pathos drowned in later scents and songs!
Thou com'st when first the Spring
On Winter's verge encroaches;
When gifts that speed on wounded wing
Meet little save reproaches!
Thou com'st when blossoms blighted,
Retracted sweets, and ditty,
From suppliants oft deceived and spited
More anger draw than pity!
Thee the old shepherd, on the bleak hill-side,
Far distant eyeing leans upon his staff
Till from his cheek the wind-brushed tear is dried:
In thee he spells his boyhood's epitaph.
To thee belongs the youngling of the flock,
When first it lies, close-huddled from the cold,
Between the sheltering rock
And gorse-bush slowly overcrept with gold.
5.
Thou laugh'st, bold outcast bright as brave,
When the wood bellows, and the cave,
And leagues inland is heard the wave!
Hating the dainty and the fine
As sings the blackbird thou dost shine!
Thou com'st while yet on mountain lawns high up
Lurks the last snow; while by the berried breer
As yet the black spring in its craggy cup
No music makes or charms no listening ear:
Thou com'st while from the oak stock or red beech
Dead Autumn scoffs young Spring with splenetic speech;
While in her vidual chastity the Year
With frozen memories of the sacred past
Her doors and heart makes fast,
And loves no flower save those that deck the bier:
Ere yet the blossomed sycamore
With golden surf is curdled o'er;
Ere yet the birch against the blue
Her silken tissue weaves anew:
Thou com'st while, meteor-like 'mid fens, the weed
Swims, wan in light; while sleet-showers whitening glare;
Weeks ere by river brims, new furred, the reed
Leans its green javelin level in the air.
6.
Child of the strong and strenuous East!
Now scattered wide o'er dusk hill bases
Now massed in broad, illuminate spaces;
Torchbearer at a wedding feast
Whereof thou mayst not be partaker,
But mime, at most, and merrymaker;
Phosphor of an ungrateful sun
That rises but to bid thy lamp begone:—
Farewell! I saw
Writ large on woods and lawns to-day that Law
Which back remands thy race and thee
To hero-haunted shades of dark Persephonè.
To-day the Spring has pledged her marriage vow:
Her voice, late tremulous, strong has grown and steady:
To-day the Spring is crowned a queen: but thou
Thy winter hast already!
Take my song's blessing, and depart,
Type of true service—unrequited heart.
Curragh Chase, 1861.
