Eight Years Old

I.     Sun, whom the faltering snow-cloud fears,     Rise, let the time of year be May,     Speak now the word that April hears,     Let March have all his royal way;     Bid all spring raise in winters ears     All tunes her children hear or play,     Because the crown of eight glad years     On one bright head is set to-day. II.     What matters cloud or sun to-day     To him who wears the wreath of years     So many, and all like flowers at play     With wind and sunshine, while his ears     Hear only song on every way?     More sweet than spring triumphant hears     Ring through the revel-rout of May     Are these, the notes that winter fears. III.     Strong-hearted winter knows and fears     The music made of love at play,     Or haply loves the tune he hears     From hearts fulfilled with flowering May,     Whose molten music thaws his ears     Late frozen, deaf but yesterday     To sounds of dying and dawning years,     Now quickened on his deathward way. IV.     For deathward now lies winters way     Down the green vestibule of years     That each year brightens day by day     With flower and shower till hope scarce fears     And fear grows wholly hope of May.     But wethe music in our ears     Made of loves pulses as they play     The heart alone that makes it hears. V.     The heart it is that plays and hears     High salutation of to-day.     Tongue falters, hand shrinks back, song fears     Its own unworthiness to play     Fit music for those eight sweet years,     Or sing their blithe accomplished way.     No song quite worth a young childs ears     Broke ever even from birds in May. VI.     There beats not in the heart of May,     When summer hopes and springtide fears,     There falls not from the height of day,     When sunlight speaks and silence hears,     So sweet a psalm as children play     And sing, each hour of all their years,     Each moment of their lovely way,     And know not how it thrills our ears. VII.     Ah child, what are we, that our ears     Should hear you singing on your way,     Should have this happiness? The years     Whose hurrying wings about us play     Are not like yours, whose flower-time fears     Nought worse than sunlit showers in May,     Being sinless as the spring, that hears     Her own heart praise her every day. VIII.     Yet we too triumph in the day     That bare, to entrance our eyes and ears,     To lighten daylight, and to play     Such notes as darkness knows and fears,     The child whose face illumes our way,     Whose voice lifts up the heart that hears,     Whose hand is as the hand of May     To bring us flowers from eight full years.