its common self must change,
And little gossip shapes of song
The porches of the morning throng.

Not yours with such as these to vie
  That of the day's small business sing,
Voice of man's heart and of God's sky—
  But O you make so deep a thing
Of joy, I dare not think of pain
Until I hear you sing again.

ALMA VENUS

Only a breath—hardly a breath! The shore
Is still a huddled alabaster floor
Of shelving ice and shattered slabs of cold,
Stern wreckage of the fiercely frozen wave,
Gleaming in mailed wastes of white and gold;
As though the sea, in an enchanted grave,
Of fearful crystal locked, no more shall stir
Softly, all lover, to the April moon:
Hardly a breath! yet was I now aware
Of a most delicate balm upon the air,
Almost a voice that almost whispered "soon"!

Not of the earth it was—no living thing
Moves in the iron landscape far or near,
Saving, in raucous flight, the winter crow,
Staining the whiteness with its ebon wing,
Or silver-sailing gull, or 'mid the drear
Rock cedars, like a summer soul astray,
A lone red squirrel makes believe to play,
Nibbling the frozen snow.

Not of the earth, that hath not scent nor song,
Nor hope of aught, nor memory, nor dream,
Nor any speech upon its sullen tongue,
Nor any liberty of running stream;
Not of the earth, that hath forgot to smile;
But, strangely wafted o'er the frozen sea,
As from some hidden Cytherean isle,
Veil within veil, the sweetness came to me.

Beyond the heaving glitter of the floe,
The free blue water sparkles to the sky,
Losing itself in brightness; to and fro
Long bands of mists trail luminously by,
And, as behind a screen, on the sea's rim
Hid softnesses of sunshine come and go,
And shadowy coasts in sudden glory swim—
O land made out of distance and desire!—
With ports of mystic pearl and crests of fire.

Thence, somewhere in the spaces of the sea,
Travelled this halcyon breath presaging Spring;
Over the water even now secretly
She maketh ready in her hands to bring
Blossom and blade and wing;
And soon the wave shall ripple with her feet,
And her wild hair be blown about the skies,

And with her bosom all the world grow sweet,
And blue with the sea-blue of her deep eyes
The meadow, like another sea, shall flower,
And all the earth be song and singing shower;
While watching, in some hollow of the grass
By the sea's edge, I may behold her stand,
With rosy feet, upon the yellow sand,
Pause in a dream, and to the woodland pass.

"AH! DID YOU EVER HEAR THE SPRING"

Ah! did you ever hear the Spring
  Calling you through the snow,
Or hear the little blackbird sing
  Inside its egg—or go
To that green land where grass begins,
  Each tiny seed, to grow?

O have you heard what none has heard,
  Or seen what none has seen;
O have you been to that strange land
  Where no one else has been!

APRIL

April, half-clad in flowers and showers,
  Walks, like a blossom, o'er the land;
She smiles at May, and laughing takes
  The rain and sunshine hand in hand.

So gay the dancing of her feet,
  So like a garden her soft breath,
So sweet the smile upon her face,
  She charms the very heart of death.

The young moon in a trance she holds
  Captive in clouds of orchard bloom,
She snaps her fingers at the grave,
  And laughs into the face of doom.

Yet in her gladness lurks a fear,
  In all her mirth there breathes a sigh,
So soon her pretty flowers are gone—
  And ah! she is too young to die!

MAY IS BUILDING HER HOUSE

May is building her house. With apple blooms
She is roofing over the glimmering rooms;
Of the oak and the beech hath she builded its beams,
And, spinning all day at her secret looms,
With arras of leaves each wind-swayed wall
She pictureth over, and peopleth it all
  With echoes and dreams,
  And singing of streams.

May is building her house of petal and blade;
Of the roots of the oak is the flooring made,
With a carpet of mosses and lichen and clover,
  Each small miracle over and over,
And tender, travelling green things strayed.

Her windows the morning and evening star,
And her rustling doorways, ever ajar
  With the coming and going
  Of fair things blowing,
The thresholds of the four winds are.

May is building her house. From the dust of things
She is making the songs and the flowers and the wings;
  From October's tossed and trodden gold
  She is making the young year out of the old;
Yea! out of winter's flying sleet
  She is making all the summer sweet,
  And the brown leaves spurned of November's feet
She is changing back again to spring's.

SHADOW

When leaf and flower are newly made,
And bird and butterfly and bee
Are at their summer posts again;
When all is ready, lo! 'tis she,
Suddenly there after soft rain—
The deep-lashed dryad of the shade.

Shadow! the fairest gift of June,
Gone like the rose the winter through,
Save in the ribbed anatomy
Of ebon line the moonlight drew,
Stark on the snow, of tower or tree,
Like letters of a dead man's rune.

Dew-breathing shade! all summer lies
In the cool hollow of thy breast,
Thou moth-winged creature darkly fair;
The very sun steals down to rest
Within thy swaying tendrilled hair,
And forest-flicker of thine eyes.

Made of all shapes that flit and sway,
And mass, and scatter in the breeze,
And meet and part, open and close;
Thou sister of the clouds and trees,
Thou daintier phantom of the rose,
Thou nun of the hot and honeyed day.

Misdeemed art thou of those who hold
Darkness thy soul, thy dwelling place
Night and its stars; nay! all of light
Wert though begot, all flowers thy face,
And, hushed in thee, all colours bright
Hide from the noon their blue and gold.

Thy voice the song of hidden rills,
The sigh deep-bosomed silence heaves
From the full heart of happy things,—
The lap of water-lily leaves,
The noiseless language of the wings
Of evening making strange the hills.

JUNE

We thought that winter, love, would never end,
  That the dark year had slain the innocent May,
  Nor hoped that your soft hand, this summer day,
Would lie, as now, in mine, beloved friend;
  And, like some magic spring, your dream-deep eyes
  Hold all the summer skies.

But lo! the world again is mad with flowers,
  The long white silence spake, small bird by bird,
Blade after blade, amid the song of showers,
  The grass stole back once more, and there was heard
The ancient music of the vernal spheres,
Half laughter and half tears.

Ah! love,