id="pgepubid00020"/>III

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.

IV

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!

V

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!

VI

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!

VII

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.

VIII

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!

IX

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,
      And gleams!
The old music sounds new—
   And it’s O, the wild Spring, and his chances
      And dreams!

There’s a lift in the blood—
   O, this gracious, and thirsting, and aching
      Unrest!
All life’s at the bud,
   And my heart, full of April, is breaking
      My breast.

X

Deep in my gathering garden
   A gallant thrush has built;
And his quaverings on the stillness
   Like light made song are spilt.

They gleam, they glint, they sparkle,
   They glitter along the air,
Like the song of a sunbeam netted
   In a tangle of red-gold hair.

And I long, as I laugh and listen,
   For the angel-hour that shall bring
My part, pre-ordained and appointed,
   In the miracle of Spring.

XI

What doth the blackbird in the boughs
Sing all day to his nested spouse?
What but the song of his old Mother-Earth,
In her mighty humour of lust and mirth?
‘Love and God’s will go wing and wing,
And as for death, is there any such thing?’—
In the shadow of death,
So, at the beck of the wizard Spring
The dear bird saith—
   So the bird saith!

Caught with us all in the nets of fate,
So the sweet wretch sings early and late;
And, O my fairest, after all,
The heart of the World’s in his innocent call.
The will of the World’s with him wing and wing:—
‘Life—life—life!  ’Tis the sole great thing
This side of death,
Heart on heart in the wonder of Spring!’
So the bird saith—
   The wise bird saith!

XII

   This world, all hoary
   With song and story,
   Rolls in a glory
      Of youth and mirth;
   Above and under
   Clothed on with wonder.
   Sunrise and thunder,
      And death and birth.
   His broods befriending
   With grace unending
   And gifts transcending
      A god’s at play,
   Yet do his meetness
   And sovran sweetness
Hold in the jocund purpose of May.

   So take your pleasure,
   And in full measure
   Use of your treasure,
      When birds sing best!
  

For when heaven’s bluest,
   And earth feels newest,
   And love longs truest,
      And takes not rest:
   When winds blow cleanest,
   And seas roll sheenest,
   And lawns lie greenest:
      Then, night and day,
   Dear life counts dearest,
   And God walks nearest
To them that praise Him, praising His May.

XIII

I talked one midnight with the jolly ghost
Of a gray ancestor, Tom Heywood hight;
And, ‘Here’s,’ says he, his old heart liquor-lifted—
‘Here’s how we did when Gloriana shone:’

All in a garden green
   Thrushes were singing;
Red rose and white between,
   Lilies were springing;
It was the merry May;
   Yet sang my Lady:—
‘Nay, Sweet, now nay, now nay!
   I am not ready.’

Then to a pleasant shade
   I