An Ode To Spring (To Grant And Nellie Allen)

Is it the Spring?         Or are the birds all wrong     That play on flute and viol,         A thousand strong,     In minstrel galleries         Of the long deep wood,     Epiphanies         Of bloom and bud.     Grave minstrels those,         Of deep responsive chant;     But see how yonder goes,         Dew-drunk, with giddy slant,     Yon Shelley-lark,         And hark!     Him on the giddy brink         Of pearly heaven     His fairy anvil clink.     Or watch, in fancy,         How the brimming note     Falls, like a string of pearls,         From out his heavenly throat;     Or like a fountain         In Hesperides,     Raining its silver rain,         In gleam and chime,     On backs of ivory girls -         Twice happy rhyme!     Ah, none of these         May make it plain,     No image we may seek      Shall match the magic of his gurgling beak.     And many a silly thing         That hops and cheeps,     And perks his tiny tail,         And sideway peeps,     And flitters little wing,         Seems in his consequential way     To tell of Spring.     The river warbles soft and runs         With fuller curve and sleeker line,     Though on the winter-blackened hedge         Twigs of unbudding iron shine,     And trampled still the river sedge.     And O the Sun!         I have no friend so generous as this Sun     That comes to meet me with his big warm hands.         And O the Sky!     There is no maid, how true,         Is half so chaste     As the pure kiss of greening willow wands         Against the intense pale blue     Of this sweet boundless overarching waste.     And see! - dear Heaven, but it is the Spring! -         See yonder, yonder, by the river there,     Long glittering pearly fingers flash         Upon the warm bright air:     Why, 'tis the heavenly palm,         The Christian tree,     Whose budding is a psalm         Of natural piety:     Soft silver notches up the smooth green stem -         Ah, Spring must follow them,     It is the Spring!     O Spirit of Spring,         Whose strange instinctive art     Makes the bird sing,         And brings the bud again;     O in my heart         Take up thy heavenly reign,     And from its deeps         Draw out the hidden flower,     And where it sleeps,         Throughout the winter long,     O sweet mysterious power         Awake the slothful song!     February 7, 1893.