Hawthorn and Lavender | Page 2

but the distance clears!
O, but the daylight grows!
Soon shall the
pied wind-flowers
Babble of greening hours,
Primrose and daffodil

Yearn to a fathering sun,
The lark have all his will,
The thrush be
never done,
And April, May, and June
Go to the same blythe tune

As this blythe dream of mine!
Moon when the crocus peers,

Moon when the violet blows,
February Fair-Maid,
Haste, and let come the rose--
Let come the rose!
III
The night dislimns, and breaks
Like snows slow thawn;
An evil wind awakes
On lea and lawn;
The low East quakes; and hark!
Out of the
kindless dark,
A fierce, protesting lark,
High in the horror of dawn!
A shivering streak of light,
A scurry of rain:
Bleak day from bleaker night

Creeps pinched and fain;
The old gloom thins and dies,
And in the
wretched skies
A new gloom, sick to rise,
Sprawls, like a thing in pain.
And yet, what matter--say!--
The shuddering trees,
The Easter-stricken day,
The sodden leas?
The good bird, wing and wing
With Time, finds
heart to sing,
As he were hastening
The swallow o'er the seas.
IV
It came with the year's first crocus
In a world of winds and snows--
Because it would, because it must,

Because of life and time and lust;
And a year's first crocus served my
turn
As well as the year's first rose.
The March rack hurries and hectors,
The March dust heaps and blows;
But the primrose flouts the daffodil,

And here's the patient violet still;
And the year's first crocus
brought me luck,
So hey for the year's first rose!
V
The good South-West on sea-worn wings
Comes shepherding the good rain;
The brave Sea breaks, and glooms,
and swings,

A weltering, glittering plain.
Sound, Sea of England, sound and shine,
Blow, English Wind, amain,
Till in this old, gray heart of mine
The Spring need wake again!
VI
In the red April dawn,
In the wild April weather,
From brake and thicket and lawn
The birds sing all together.
The look of the hoyden Spring
Is pinched and shrewish and cold;
But all together they sing
Of a world that can never be old:
Of a world still young--still young!--
Whose last word won't be said,
Nor her last song dreamed and sung,
Till her last true lover's dead!
VII
The April sky sags low and drear,
The April winds blow cold,
The April rains fall gray and sheer,
And yeanlings keep the fold.
But the rook has built, and the song-birds quire,
And over the faded lea
The lark soars glorying, gyre on gyre,

And he is the bird for me!
For he sings as if from his watchman's height
He saw, this blighting day,
The far vales break into colour and light
From the banners and arms of May.
VIII
Shadow and gleam on the Downland
Under the low Spring sky,
Shadow and gleam in my spirit--
Why?
A bird, in his nest rejoicing,
Cheers and flatters and woos:
A fresh voice flutters my fancy--
Whose?
And the humour of April frolics
And bickers in blade and bough--
O, to meet for the primal kindness
Now!
IX
The wind on the wold,
With sea-scents and sea-dreams attended,
Is wine!
The air is as gold
In elixir--it takes so the splendid
Sunshine!

O, the larks in the blue!
How the song of them glitters, and glances,
And gleams!
The old music sounds new--
And it's O, the wild Spring, and his chances
And dreams!
There's a lift in the blood--
O, this gracious, and thirsting, and aching
Unrest!
All life's at the bud,
And my heart, full of April, is breaking
My breast.
X
Deep in my gathering garden
A gallant thrush has built;
And his quaverings on the stillness
Like light made song are spilt.
They gleam, they glint, they sparkle,
They glitter along the air,
Like the song of a sunbeam netted
In a tangle of red-gold hair.
And I long, as I laugh and listen,
For the angel-hour that shall bring
My part, pre-ordained and
appointed,

In the miracle of Spring.
XI
What doth the blackbird in the boughs
Sing all day to his nested
spouse?
What but the song of his old Mother-Earth,
In her mighty
humour of lust and mirth?
'Love and God's will go wing and wing,

And as for death, is there any such thing?'--
In the shadow of death,

So, at the beck of the wizard Spring
The dear bird saith--
So the bird saith!
Caught with us all in the nets of fate,
So the sweet wretch sings early
and late;
And, O my fairest, after all,
The heart of the World's in his
innocent call.
The will of the World's with him wing and wing:--

'Life--life--life! 'Tis the sole great thing
This side of death,
Heart on
heart in the wonder of Spring!'
So the bird saith--
The wise bird saith!
XII
This world, all hoary
With song and story,
Rolls in a glory
Of youth and mirth;
Above and under
Clothed on with wonder.

Sunrise and thunder,
And death and birth.
His broods befriending
With grace unending

And gifts transcending
A god's at play,
Yet do his meetness
And sovran sweetness
Hold
in the jocund