A flight of doves, with wanton wings,
      Flash white against the sky.
     In the leafy copse an oriole sings,
      And a robin sings hard by.
     Sun and shadow are out on the hills;
     The swallow has followed the daffodils;
     In leaf and blade, life throbs and thrills
      Through the wild, warm heart of May.

     To have seen the sun come back, to have seen
      Children again at play,
     To have heard the thrush where the woods are green
      Welcome the new-born day,
     To have felt the soft grass cool to the feet,
     To have smelt earth's incense, heavenly sweet,
     To have shared the laughter along the street,
      And, then, to have died in May!

     A thousand roses will blossom red,
      A thousand hearts be gay,
     For the summer lingers just ahead
      And June is on her way;
     The bee must bestir him to fill his cells,
     The moon and the stars will weave new spells
     Of love and the music of marriage bells—
      And, oh, to be dead in May!

     'T will not be long before they hear
      The bullbat on the hill,
     And in the valley through the dusk
      The pastoral whippoorwill.
     A few more friendly suns will call
      The bluets through the loam
     And star the lanes with buttercups
         Away down home.

     "Knee-deep!" from reedy places
      Will sing the river frogs.
     The terrapins will sun themselves
      On all the jutting logs.
     The angler's cautious oar will leave
      A trail of drifting foam
     Along the shady currents
         Away down home.

     The mocking-bird will feel again
      The glory of his wings,
     And wanton through the balmy air
      And sunshine while he sings,
     With a new cadence in his call,
      The glint-wing'd crow will roam
     From field to newly-furrowed field
         Away down home.

     When dogwood blossoms mingle
      With the maple's modest red,
     And sweet arbutus wakes at last
      From out her winter's bed,
     'T would not seem strange at all to meet
      A dryad or a gnome,
     Or Pan or Psyche in the woods
         Away down home.

     Then come with me, thou weary heart!
      Forget thy brooding ills,
     Since God has come to walk among
      His valleys and his hills!
     The mart will never miss thee,
      Nor