Hope and Spring! You are sisters!
In my woodlands
The primroses are peeping
With pale, sweet golden eyes,
In spite of Winter's weeping.
In my woodlands
A thrush has just swung, dipping,
In search of his spring voice;
The trees stand dripping, dripping.
In my woodlands
Harsh Winter coldly shivers;
The windflower, white adventurer,
With hope of springtime quivers.
Soon my woodlands,
Bearing bannerets of Spring,
Will be every moment musical
With birds that, mating, sing.
Hope and Spring! You are sisters!
Oh, Spring! Spring!
Since the Autumn died in glory,
How I have yearned for your coming
Thro' the cloistral fog-bound days,
Your beauty seemed a story
That would never be told again.
Spring! of the pearly cloud-skies
Soft-curled as a baby's hand,
Turquoise as children's eyes,
Of rainbow-tinctured days
And twittering song of the eaves!
Spring! You desired vision,
The wind in your primrose hair,
Your eyes, too, weepingly ready,
Your face, an anemone fair;
Your train, a burgeoning pattern
Be-sprent with woodland flowers,
Blackthorn, daffies, bluebells,
Marking the flight of our hours.
Spring! Tho' it still is Winter,
In your mystic sleep you smile,
Yet the primroses and the thrush on wing
Know that even in sleep you sing;
You wondrous, envassaling, longed-for Maid!
Oh! If Death came now I should be afraid:
I have longed for you so the dark months thro',
That I must see the pulsing glory of you;
And your little hand-maidens in their turn—
For each at their 'pointed times I yearn.
Virginal snowdrop,
Firstling of Spring!
Crocus, herald of purple and gold,
Wistful windflowers,
Celandined stars,
Every one to my heart I fold.
Snow-soft blackthorn,
You wild, fair sweet,
The scent of you brings
A flutter of wings;
And, almond blossom,
You stole at dawn
The pale dream vest
Of the infant morn.
Of a pool of blue I dream—
Hyacinths, waving in ripples of blue.
There is nothing so fair the whole world thro'
As when quivering sun and quivering wind
Jocundly, joyously, leapingly find
A young green wood in a lazuli dream.
O Spring, if I lay on my dying bed
I should wait to die, till your glory had fled,
I could not go ere the cuckoo had cried
His impudent call to the countryside:
Not till the swallows had loyally come
To their nesting place, in my liefest home,
And then I should wait for the blackbird's note
To leap from his melody-stirring throat.
Ah! And to feel the April rain
Pattering on my face again.
God grant that I do not die in the Spring,
When my whole soul rebels to live and sing;
As we all must die, so let me die
When the grey November fogs are nigh;
Not for a longer space of heaven
Would I forfeit one day, nay, one single hour,
One sweet bird-cry, or one haunting flower,
Of my beautiful, longed-for, fleeting Spring.
Hope and Spring! You are sisters!
'Tis Winter still,
But you stir in sleep
Tho' the cold gusts blow
And the bare trees weep.
But the early primrose
And flitting thrush
Have watched you smile
And have seen you blush.
And tho' it is long
Ere yet you rise,
And the blue of your glance
Reflect in the skies;
My heart is awake
And ready to sing
The moment you beckon,
Sweet, glorious Spring!
Hope and Spring! You are sisters!
PATELEY BRIDGE, NIDDERDALE,