The Bush-Sparrow

I.     Ere wild-haws, looming in the glooms,     Build bolted drifts of breezy blooms;     And in the whistling hollow there     The red-bud bends, as brown and bare     As buxom Roxy's up-stripped arm;     From some gray hickory or larch,     Sighed o'er the sodden meads of March,     The sad heart thrills and reddens warm     To hear you braving the rough storm,     Frail courier of green-gathering powers;     Rebelling sap in trees and flowers;     Love's minister come heralding     O sweet saint-voice among bleak bowers!     O brown-red pursuivant of Spring! II.     'Moan' sob the woodland waters still     Down bloomless ledges of the hill;     And gray, gaunt clouds like harpies hang     In harpy heavens, and swoop and clang     Sharp beaks and talons of the wind:     Black scowl the forests, and unkind     The far fields as the near: while song     Seems murdered and all beauty wrong.     One weak frog only in the thaw     Of spawny pools wakes cold and raw,     Expires a melancholy bass     And stops as if bewildered: then     Along the frowning wood again,     Flung in the thin wind's vulture face,     From woolly tassels of the proud,     Red-bannered maples, long and loud,     'The Spring is come! is here! her Grace! her Grace!' III.     'Her Grace, the Spring! her Grace! her Grace!     Climbs, beautiful and sunny browed,     Up, up the kindling hills and wakes     Blue berries in the berry brakes:     With fragrant flakes, that blow and bleach,     Deep-powders smothered quince and peach:     Eyes dogwoods with a thousand eyes;     Teaches each sod how to be wise     With twenty wildflowers to one weed,     And kisses germs that they may seed.     In purest purple and sweet white     Treads up the happier hills of light,     Bloom, cloudy-borne, song in her hair     And balm and beam of odorous air.     Winds, her retainers; and the rains     Her yeomen strong that sweep the plains:     Her scarlet knights of dawn, and gold     Of eve, her panoply unfold:     Her herald tabarded behold!     Awake to greet! prepare to sing!     She comes, the darling Duchess, Spring!'