Low—low
Over a perishing after-glow,
A thin, red shred of moon
Trailed. In the windless air
The poplars all ranked lean and chill.
The smell of winter loitered there,
And the Year’s heart felt still.
Yet not so far away
Seemed the mad Spring,
But that, as lovers will,
I let my laughing heart go play,
As it had been a fond maid’s frolicking;
And, turning thrice the gold I’d got,
In the good gloom
Solemnly wished me—what?
What, and with whom?
Moon of half-candied meres
And flurrying, fading snows;
Moon of unkindly rains,
Wild skies, and troubled vanes;
When the Norther snarls and bites,
And the lone moon walks a-cold,
And the lawns grizzle o’ nights,
And wet fogs search the fold:
Here in this heart of mine
A dream that warms like wine,
A dream one other knows,
Moon of the roaring weirs
And the sip-sopping close,
February Fill-Dyke,
Shapes like a royal rose—
A red, red rose!
O, 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!
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.
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!
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!
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!
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.
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!
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,