Am no longer lame since Spring
Stooped to me where I lay,
And charmed with flute and silver lute
My laggard limbs to play.
Her voice is sweet as long-stored wine;
I leap like a hounded fawn;
I rise and follow over hill and hollow
To the flush of the crimson dawn!
“My sweet,” you sang, and, “Sweet,” I sang,
And sweet we sang together,
Glad to be young as the world was young,
Two colts too strong for a tether.
Shall ever a spring be like that spring,
Or apple blossoms as white;
Or ever clover smell like the clover
We lay upon that night?
Shall ever your hand lie in my hand,
Pulsing to it, I wonder;
Or have the gods, being jealous gods,
Envied us our thunder?
Far from this foreign Easter damp and chilly
My soul steals to a pear-shaped plot of ground,
Where gleamed the lilac-tinted Easter lily
Soft-scented in the air for yards around;
Alone, without a hint of guardian leaf!
Just like a fragile bell of silver rime,
It burst the tomb for freedom sweet and brief
In the young pregnant year at Eastertime;
And many thought it was a sacred sign,
And some called it the resurrection flower;
And I, a pagan, worshiped at its shrine,
Yielding my heart unto its perfumed power.
The grip of the ice is gone now.
The silvers chase purple.
The purples tag silver.
They let out their runners
Here where summer says to the lilies :
" Wish and be wistful,
Circle this wind-hunted, wind-sung water."
Come along always, come along now.
You for me, kiss me, pull me by the ear.
Push me along with the wind push.
Sing like the whinnying wind.
Sing like the hustling obstreperous wind.
Have you ever seen deeper purple . . .
this in my wild wind fingers?
Could you have more fun with a pony or a goat ?
Have you seen such flicking heels before,
The snow piles in dark places are gone.
Pools by the railroad tracks shine clear.
The gravel of all shallow places shines.
A white pigeon reels and somersaults.
Frogs plutter and squdge — and frogs beat
the air with a recurring thin
steel sliver of melody.
Crows go in fives and tens ; they march their
black feathers past a blue pool ; they
celebrate an old festival.
A spider is trying his webs, a pink bug sits
on my hand washing his forelegs.
I might ask: Who are these people?
Count these reminiscences like money.
The Greeks had their picnics under another name.
The Romans wore glad rags and told their neighbors,
"What of it?"
The Carlovingians hauling logs on carts, they too
Stuck their noses in the air and stuck their thumbs to
their noses
And tasted life as a symphonic dream of fresh eggs
broken over a frying pan left by an uncle who
killed men with spears and short swords.
Count these reminiscences like money.
Drift, and drift on, white ships.
Sailing the free sky blue, sailing and changing and
sailing,
Oh, I remember in the blood of my dreams how they
sang before me.
Early May, after cold rain the sun baffling cold wind.
Irish setter pup finds a corner near the cellar door,
all sun and no wind,
Cuddling there he crosses forepaws and lays his skull
Sideways on this pillow, dozing in a half-sleep,
Browns of hazel nut, mahogany, rosewood, played off
against each other on his paws
and head.
Wonder as of old things
Fresh and fair come back
Hangs over pasture and road.
Lush in the lowland grasses rise
And upland beckons to upland.
The great strong hills are humble.
All in a green thicket I heard a bird sing,
And blithe though his song was it made the tears spring,
To hear the bird sing as he swung on his spray,
All in a green thicket at break of the day.
All in a green thicket his song he did pour
That told of the Springs that shall come nevermore,
That sang of sweet blossoms, now faded and dry.
All in a green thicket in Aprils gone by.
All in a green thicket that morning in Spring,
I smelt the sharp scent of each young growing thing,
I smelt the sweet herbage all drowned with the dew.
And the time that's gone from me was with me anew.
All in a green thicket at break of the day
It was like the dear voice of a friend far away,
"The sting of it all," you said, as you stooped low over your roses,
"The worst of it is, when I think of Death,
That Spring by Spring the Earth shall still be beautiful,
And Summer by Summer be lovely again,
--And I shall be gone!"
"I would not care, perhaps," you said, watching your roses,
"If only 'twere dust and ruin and emptiness left behind!
But the thought that Earth and April
Year by casual year
Shall waken around the old ways, soft and beautiful,
Year by year when I am away,
--This, this breaks my heart!"
I saw a woman stand
Under the seas of bloom,
Under the waves of colour and light,
The showery snow and rose of the odorous trees
That made a glory of earth.
She stood where the petals fell,
And her hands were on her breast,
And her lips were touched with wonder,
And her eyes were full of pain--
For pure she was, and young,
And it was Spring!
(To be sung)
I WILL pluck from my tree a cherry-blossom wand,
And carry it in my merciless hand,
So I will drive you, so bewitch your eyes,
With a beautiful thing that can never grow wise.
Light are the petals that fall from the bough,
And lighter the love that I offer you now;
In a spring day shall the tale be told
Of the beautiful things that will never grow old.
The blossoms shall fall in the night wind.
And I will leave you so, to be kind:
Eternal in beauty are short-lived flowers.
Eternal in beauty, these exquisite hours.
I will pluck from my tree a cherry-blossom wand,
And carry it in my merciless hand,
So I will drive you, so bewitch your eyes.