Song

And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night,
Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid,
Follows with dancing and fills with delight
The Mænad and the Bassarid;
And soft as lips that laugh and hide
The laughing leaves of the trees divide,
And screen from seeing and leave in sight
The god pursuing, the maiden hid.

The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair
Over her eyebrows hiding her eyes;
The wild vine slipping down leaves bare

1299

Her bright breast shortening into sighs;
The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves,
But the berried ivy catches and cleaves

To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare
The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies.
Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]

SONG

AGAIN rejoicing Nature sees

Her robe assume its vernal hues;
Her leafy locks wave in the breeze,
All freshly steeped in morning dews.

In vain to me the cowslips blaw,
In vain to me the violets spring;

In vain to me in glen or shaw,

The mavis and the lintwhite sing.

The merry ploughboy cheers his team,
Wi' joy the tentie seedsman stalks,
But life to me's a weary dream,

A dream of ane that never wauks.

The wanton coot the water skims,
Amang the reeds the ducklings cry,

The stately swan majestic swims,
And everything is blest but I.

The shepherd steeks his faulding slap,
And owre the moorland whistles shrill;
Wi' wild, unequal, wand'ring step

I meet him on the dewy hill.

And when the lark, 'tween light and dark,
Blithe waukens by the daisy's side,
And mounts and sings on flittering wings,
A woe-worn ghaist I hameward glide.

Come, Winter, with thine angry howl,
And raging bend the naked tree;
Thy gloom will soothe my cheerless soul,
When Nature all is sad like me!

Robert Burns [1759-1796]

TO SPRING

O THOU with dewy locks, who lookest down
Through the clear windows of the morning, turn
Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!

The hills tell one another, and the listening
Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turned
Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth
And let thy holy feet visit our clime!

Come o'er the eastern hills, and let our winds
Kiss thy perfumèd garments; let us taste
Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
Upon our lovesick land that mourns for thee.

O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour
Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put
Thy golden crown upon her languished head,
Whose modest tresses are bound up for thee!
William Blake [1757-1827]

An Ode on the Spring

1301

AN ODE ON THE SPRING

Lo! where the rosy-bosomed Hours,
Fair Venus' train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,

The untaught harmony of spring:
While, whispering pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs through the clear blue sky
Their gathered fragrance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader browner shade,

Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade,

Beside some water's rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclined in rustic state)

How vain the ardor of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great!

Still is the toiling hand of Care:
The panting herds repose:

Yet, hark, how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!

The insect-youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring

And float amid the liquid noon;
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gaily-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun.

To Contemplation's sober eye

Such is the race of Man:

And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.

Alike the Busy and the Gay

But flutter through life's little day,

In Fortune's varying colors dressed:
Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chilled by Age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest.

Methinks I hear, in accents low,
The sportive kind reply:

Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!

Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display;
On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone—
We frolic, while 'tis May.

SPRING

Thomas Gray [1716-1771]

SPRING, with that nameless pathos in the air

Which dwells with all things fair,

Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain,

Is with us once again.

Out in the lonely woods the jasmine burns

Its fragrant lamps, and turns

Into a royal court with green festoons

The banks of dark lagoons.

In the deep heart of every

The blood is all aglee,

forest tree

And there's a look about the leafless bowers

As if they dreamed of flowers.

Yet still on every side we trace the hand

Of Winter in the land,

Save where the maple reddens on the lawn,
Flushed by the season's dawn;

Spring

Or where, like those strange semblances we find

That age to childhood bind,

The elm puts on, as if in Nature's scorn,

The brown of Autumn corn.

As yet the turf is dark, although you know

That, not a span below,

A thousand germs are groping through the gloom,

And soon will burst their tomb.

Already, here and there, on frailest stems

Appear some azure gems,

Small as might deck, upon a gala day,

The forehead of a fay.

In gardens you may note amid the dearth,

The crocus breaking earth;

And near the snowdrop's tender white and green,
The violet in its screen.

But many gleams and shadows needs must pass

Along the budding grass,

And weeks go by, before the enamored South

Shall kiss the rose's mouth.

Still there's a sense of blossoms yet unborn

In the sweet airs of morn;

One almost looks to see the very street

Grow purple at his feet.

At times a fragrant breeze comes floating by,

And brings, you know not why,

A feeling as when eager crowds await

Before a palace gate

1303

Some wondrous pageant; and you scarce would start,

If from a beech's heart

A blue-eyed Dryad, stepping forth, should say,

"Behold me! I am May!"

Henry Timrod [1829-1867]