The Poetical Works of John Payne :: :: University of Virginia Library

‘Le beau Dionysos, dont le regard essuie
Les cieux et fait tomber la bienfaisante pluie,
Qui s'élance, flot d'or, dans les pores ouverts
De notre terre et fait gonfler les bourgeons verts.’
Théodore de Banville.

I.

OUT of the fields the snowdrops peep:
To work, O land!
Awake, O earth, from the white snow-sleep,
Shake off the coverlet soft and deep;
Spring is at hand.
Thou hast slumbered the months away long enough;
'Tis time for the winter rude and rough
To die and give way
To the bloomy May:
Awake and shake off the tyrant gruff!

282

Up from the numbing clasp of the snow!
Shake off the winter weather!
The breath of the year grows warm apace,
As the snowflakes melt from his fresh young face,
And the eastern moorlands are all aglow
With their budding heather.
Already the swallows are calling, “Cheep! cheep!
All things are waking from their long sleep,
We and the Spring together.”

See where the battle-host of the blooms
Waits for the fray;
See where the cowardly tyrant glooms:
He knows the scent of those soft bright dooms,
That say to him, ‘Hence away!’
Over the meadows their squadrons glitter,
Orange and purple and white and blue,
Jewel-helmed with the diamond-dew,
A fairy army of sweet Spring roses,
Of bluebell-blossoms and pale primroses,
Spreads out its ranks in the balmy air,
Whilst the lark and linnet and blackbird twitter
A quaint war-march for each elfin Ritter,
That troops in the alleys fair.

II.

Wearyful winter is gone at last,
With its wild winds sighing,
And the blooms of the Spring are flocking fast:
Primrose and cowslip and windflower-bells
Broider the grass in the cool wood-dells;
Cloud-roses over the sky are flying.
Evoë! the chill of the year is dying!
Good-bye to the bitter blast!
Iö! the hillocks are mad with bliss,
As the new sweet stirring

283

Quickens their hearts with the vernal kiss!
Silver and azure and golden green,
The meadows shine in the warm Spring-sheen
And the music of myriad wings is whirring,
As the birds, that fled from the winter frore,
Back to the isle with the silver shore
Hasten from spice-forests far away
In the Indian seas,
To revel in blossom-embroidered May,
As the flower-hosts chase out the winter gray
From the newly wakened leas.

Bacchus returns from the Eastern skies;
Welcome his train with their bright wood-sheen!
Evoë! he brings us the golden prize,
The charm of the Indian queen,
He battled so long for and won at last;
He brings us the spell that unchains the flowers
And loosens the wheels of the golden hours,
When the power of the frost is waning fast,
When the chill snowflakes from the landscape fly
And the dying eastwinds wearily sigh,
‘Alas! our winter is past!’
See! to the eastward his lance-points gleam!
Iö! the time is near!
Evoë! the winter wanes like a dream,
As the diamond helms of the Bassarids beam
And the May-blooms glow in the sun's full stream,
That glitters on every spear.
Already I hear their voices' hum
And the pipe and clang of their silver reeds
And their songs of the Spring-god's sweet flower-deeds,
As back from the golden East he leads
His sea-shell car with the tiger steeds:
Evoë! the Spring is come!

Evoë, Lyæus! the Spring is here!
Onward they come apace.

284

See how the landscape, bare and sere,
Flushes at once with a golden bliss,
As the earliest touch of the vernal kiss
Gilds with a tender grace
The grand old winter-enwounded trees,
That throb and sway in the balmy breeze,
Sweet from the flower-strewn plains;
Whilst the radiant train of the wine-god sweeps
Through the inmost heart of the woodland deeps
And the 'wildering thrill of the Springtide creeps
Up through their frost-dried veins.