Zinzendorff and Other Poems/The First Morning of Spring
THE FIRST MORNING OF SPRING.
Break from your chains, ye lingering streams,
Rise, blossoms from your wintry dreams,
Drear fields, your robes of verdure take,
Birds, from your trance of silence wake,
Glad trees resume your leafy crown,
Shrubs, o'er the mirror-brooks bend down,
Bland zephyrs, wheresoe'er ye stray,
The Spring doth call you,—come away.
—Thou too, my soul, with quicken'd force
Pursue thy brief, thy measur'd course,
With grateful zeal each power employ,
Catch vigor from Creation's joy,
And deeply on thy shortening span,
Stamp love to God, and love to man.
—But Spring with tardy step appears,
Chill is her eye, and dim with tears,
Still are the founts in fetters bound,
The flower-germs shrink within the ground,
Where are the warblers of the sky?
I ask,—and angry blasts reply.
—It is not thus in heavenly bowers,
Nor ice-bound rill, nor drooping flowers,
Nor silent harp, nor folded wing
Invade that everlasting Spring,
Toward which we look with wishful tear
While pilgrims in this wintry sphere.