Cold, like a flower carved on a funeral stone,
Born with the snows, and with the snows is gone.
And, in its place, daisies, rose-touched, unfold—
Small fairies, bearing each a gift of gold;
And violets, like a young child's eyes of blue;
Ah, spring and childhood only know that hue;
The violet wears a dimmer shade; the eye
Grows tear-stained, as the year and life pass by.
But now the wheat and grass are green, therein
The grasshopper and lark their nests begin;
The purple clover round them, like a bower.
Now doth the apple tree put forth its flower,
Lined with faint crimson; the laburnum bends
'Neath the bright gold that from each bough descends;
Her graceful foliage forth the ash has flung;
The aspen trembles: are its leaves so young
That the sweet wind doth scare them, though it bear
No ruder breath than flowers breathe through the air?
A lulling sound where thyme and wild-heaths blow,
Tells that the bee has there its Mexico.
One note of natural music, that which now
Haunts the deep grass, the sky, the brook, the bough.
Deep in the woodland sits the thrush and sings,
The sunshine dancing on its dusky wings,
When the wind stirs the branches, and a ray
Lights the dim glades scarce conscious of the day.
Are not these beautiful, these hours which bring
Its leaves and flowers, its breath and bloom to spring?
