In Early Spring

O Spring, I know thee! Seek for sweet surprise         In the young children's eyes.     But I have learnt the years, and know the yet         Leaf-folded violet.     Mine ear, awake to silence, can foretell         The cuckoo's fitful bell.     I wander in a grey time that encloses         June and the wild hedge-roses.     A year's procession of the flowers doth pass         My feet, along the grass.     And all you sweet birds silent yet, I know         The notes that stir you so,     Your songs yet half devised in the dim dear         Beginnings of the year.     In these young days you meditate your part;         I have it all by heart.     I know the secrets of the seeds of flowers         Hidden and warm with showers,     And how, in kindling Spring, the cuckoo shall         Alter his interval.     But not a flower or song I ponder is         My own, but memory's.     I shall be silent in those days desired         Before a world inspired.     O dear brown birds, compose your old song-phrases         Earth, thy familiar daisies.     The poet mused upon the dusky height,         Between two stars towards night,     His purpose in his heart. I watched, a space,         The meaning of his face:     There was the secret, fled from earth and skies,         Hid in his grey young eyes.     My heart and all the Summer wait his choice,         And wonder for his voice.     Who shall foretell his songs, and who aspire         But to divine his lyre?     Sweet earth, we know thy dimmest mysteries,         But he is lord of his.