What does it mean to us that Spring is here?
We asked ourselves within the great grey hall.
We shall not feel the magic of her call;
This day, like others, will be dull and drear.
And then you sang . . . and brought so very near,
The fragrant world beyond the prison wall,
The tender fields, the trees and grass, and all
The hopes and dreams that every man holds dear.
O, silvery voices, sweet with life and youth
Brushing our grey lives with your rainbow wings—
Lives that were stern and bitter with old wrong,
And cleansing them with beauty and with truth;
Reviving memories of vanished springs—
Making us whole with miracles of song!