May-Day | Page 2

wakes the wish in youngest blood?To tread the forfeit Paradise,?And feed once more the exile's eyes;?And ever when the happy child?In May beholds the blooming wild,?And hears in heaven the bluebird sing,?"Onward," he cries, "your baskets bring,--?In the next field is air more mild,?And o'er yon hazy crest is Eden's balmier Spring."
Not for a regiment's parade,?Nor evil laws or rulers made,?Blue Walden rolls its cannonade,?But for a lofty sign?Which the Zodiac threw,?That the bondage-days are told,?And waters free as winds shall flow.?Lo! how all the tribes combine?To rout the flying foe.?See, every patriot oak-leaf throws?His elfin length upon the snows,?Not idle, since the leaf all day?Draws to the spot the solar ray,?Ere sunset quarrying inches down,?And half-way to the mosses brown;?While the grass beneath the rime?Has hints of the propitious time,?And upward pries and perforates?Through the cold slab a thousand gates,?Till green lances peering through?Bend happy in the welkin blue.
April cold with dropping rain?Willows and lilacs brings again,?The whistle of returning birds,?And trumpet-lowing of the herds.?The scarlet maple-keys betray?What potent blood hath modest May;?What fiery force the earth renews,?The wealth of forms, the flush of hues;?Joy shed in rosy waves abroad?Flows from the heart of Love, the Lord.
Hither rolls the storm of heat;?I feel its finer billows beat?Like a sea which me infolds;?Heat with viewless fingers moulds,?Swells, and mellows, and matures,?Paints, and flavours, and allures,?Bird and brier inly warms,?Still enriches and transforms,?Gives the reed and lily length,?Adds to oak and oxen strength,?Boils the world in tepid lakes,?Burns the world, yet burnt remakes;?Enveloping heat, enchanted robe,?Wraps the daisy and the globe,?Transforming what it doth infold,?Life out of death, new out of old,?Painting fawns' and leopards' fells,?Seethes the gulf-encrimsoning shells,?Fires garden with a joyful blaze?Of tulips in the morning's rays.?The dead log touched bursts into leaf,?The wheat-blade whispers of the sheaf.?What god is this imperial Heat,?Earth's prime secret, sculpture's seat??Doth it bear hidden in its heart?Water-line patterns of all art,?All figures, organs, hues, and graces??Is it Daedalus? is it Love??Or walks in mask almighty Jove,?And drops from Power's redundant horn?All seeds of beauty to be born?
Where shall we keep the holiday,?And duly greet the entering May??Too strait and low our cottage doors,?And all unmeet our carpet floors;?Nor spacious court, nor monarch's hall,?Suffice to hold the festival.?Up and away! where haughty woods?Front the liberated floods:?We will climb the broad-backed hills,?Hear the uproar of their joy;?We will mark the leaps and gleams?Of the new-delivered streams,?And the murmuring rivers of sap?Mount in the pipes of the trees,?Giddy with day, to the topmost spire,?Which for a spike of tender green?Bartered its powdery cap;?And the colours of joy in the bird,?And the love in its carol heard,?Frog and lizard in holiday coats,?And turtle brave in his golden spots;?We will hear the tiny roar?Of the insects evermore,?While cheerful cries of crag and plain?Reply to the thunder of river and main.
As poured the flood of the ancient sea?Spilling over mountain chains,?Bending forests as bends the sedge,?Faster flowing o'er the plains,--?A world-wide wave with a foaming edge?That rims the running silver sheet,--?So pours the deluge of the heat?Broad northward o'er the land,?Painting artless paradises,?Drugging herbs with Syrian spices,?Fanning secret fires which glow?In columbine and clover-blow,?Climbing the northern zones,?Where a thousand pallid towns?Lie like cockles by the main,?Or tented armies on a plain.?The million-handed sculptor moulds?Quaintest bud and blossom folds,?The million-handed painter pours?Opal hues and purple dye;?Azaleas flush the island floors,?And the tints of heaven reply.
Wreaths for the May! for happy Spring?To-day shall all her dowry bring,?The love of kind, the joy, the grace,?Hymen of element and race,?Knowing well to celebrate?With song and hue and star and state,?With tender light and youthful cheer,?The spousals of the new-born year.?Lo Love's inundation poured?Over space and race abroad!
Spring is strong and virtuous,?Broad-sowing, cheerful, plenteous,?Quickening underneath the mould?Grains beyond the price of gold.?So deep and large her bounties are,?That one broad, long midsummer day?Shall to the planet overpay?The ravage of a year of war.
Drug the cup, thou butler sweet,?And send the nectar round;?The feet that slid so long on sleet?Are glad to feel the ground.?Fill and saturate each kind?With good according to its mind,?Fill each kind and saturate?With good agreeing with its fate,?Willow and violet, maiden and man.
The bitter-sweet, the haunting air,?Creepeth, bloweth everywhere;?It preys on all, all prey on it,?Blooms in beauty, thinks in wit,?Stings the strong with enterprise,?Makes travellers long for Indian skies,?And where it comes this courier fleet?Fans in all hearts expectance sweet,?As if to-morrow should redeem?The vanished rose of evening's dream.?By houses lies a fresher green,?On men and maids a ruddier mien,?As if time brought a new relay?Of shining virgins every May,?And Summer came to ripen maids?To a beauty that not fades.
The ground-pines wash their rusty green,?The maple-tops their crimson tint,?On the soft path each track is seen,?The girl's foot leaves its neater print.?The pebble loosened from the frost?Asks of the