Angelina Weld Grimké writes to a lost love as spring returns. The opening stanza is full of new life—green earth, sweet wind, singing birds—but the speaker’s longing cuts through it: when the year feels young, that one face is the one they want near. The second stanza reveals why the beloved cannot come. The green now hides curls; daisies bloom at the person’s feet; birds hush overhead. These details quietly suggest a grave. The speaker has mourned “this many, many a year,” so the season’s beauty no longer moves them as it once did. Flowers fall like snow, thorns grow on roses, and even sunset glow fails to lift the heart. The mood is tender and melancholy—renewal all around, but for the speaker, spring is a reminder of absence.
When the Green Lies Over the Earth — Summary
When the green lies over the earth, my dear, A mantle of witching grace, When the smile and the tear of the young child year Dimple across its face, And then flee, when the wind all day is sweet With the breath of growing things, When the wooing bird lights on restless feet And chirrups and trills and sings To his lady-love In the green above, Then oh! my dear, when the youth’s in the year, Yours is the face that I long to have near, Yours is the face, my dear.
But the green is hiding your curls, my dear, Your curls so shining and sweet; And the gold-hearted daisies this many a year Have bloomed and bloomed at your feet, And the little birds just above your head With their voices hushed, my dear, For you have sung and have prayed and have pled This many, many a year.
And the blossoms fall, On the garden wall, And drift like snow on the green below. But the sharp thorn grows On the budding rose, And my heart no more leaps at the sunset glow. For oh! my dear, when the youth’s in the year, Yours is the face that I long to have near, Yours is the face, my dear.