Well, here you are at last, dear! Are the biting blizzards past, dear?

And will you guarantee us from subjection to the plumber?

Will no casual icy splinter from the serried spears of Winter

Put a chill upon your smile, and spoil the promise of the Summer?

We've been waiting worn and weary, till e'en cuckoo-songs sound cheery,

And belated almond-blossoms show like roses of Cashmere:

And the cockney chaunt now flowing, "All-a-blowing and a-growing!"

Falls far sweeter than Mascagni upon London's longing ear.

Where on earth have you been hiding? We are in no mood for chiding,

But mid-April's rather late, dear, for what should have come in March!

What malignant hocus-pocus has kept back the plucky crocus,

Whose gold is scarce yet bursting from the beds the winds still parch?

After that six weeks cold snap, dear, of fast frozen pipe and tap, dear,

When back to barbarism and to bathlessness fate drove us,

And we sicklier grew, and surlier, if you'd come a leetle earlier,—

Well, let bygones now be bygones! But O Spring sweet! an you love us,

Come—at last, dear—à la Herrick, with such influence atmospheric

As will slay the Influenza; with such fragrance from your flowers,

As will knock Malaria silly; let your dear daffydown-dilly

From our bodies drive bacilli, and the blight from out our bowers.

Slay our Microbes, Spring, and bless us! Like a clinging Shirt of Nessus

Morbid sickliness surrounds us in our lives, our books, our art.

Oh, if sunshine and your breezes might but slay our soul-diseases,

Oust the pestilent miasma that pervades the home, the mart;

Neutralise the nauseous virus whose developments so tire us;

Disinfect the New Parnassus, purge the New Pierian Spring,

Bring us honesty and health, dear, why for all our wit and wealth, dear,

We might love like Nature's lovers, and like Nature's poets sing.

Ah! we need Spring's prophylactic!—But I'm getting too didactic

For a sunny April morning, and a sweet young thing like you.

My dear, the London Season, wrapped and furred out of all reason,

Has been waiting, decked like Winter, with a nose-tip nearly blue;

Waiting, waiting for your coming. Sweet as bees in clover humming

Is the first sound of your footfall. Most spontaneous of passions

Is the love for you, you darling. You will bring the thrush and starling,

And the young leaves and the young lambs, and, what's better—

the Spring Fashions!!!

So no wonder that she greets you with effusion when she meets you.

Ah, Spring! 'tis not your lilacs, and your daffodils and stocks,

Or the tender leaves the trees on, that most moves Miss London Season,

'Tis the hope of "rippin'" frolics and the thought of "trotty" frocks.

But an old man's heart, my treasure, beats to quite another measure,

Still my sympathies, dear Spring, are with the youngsters and with you.

They are looking for love's playtime, and the merry, merry May-time,

And the popular R.A. time, and the whole tohu-bohu!

Bring the girls delights as dowry, may their social paths be flowery,

And your silver drops the only tears they need to look upon.

So they're wholesome, may they flourish; and may all Spring influence nourish

True manhood and pure womanhood, and—there, my preaching's done!

We need a true Spring Clean, sweet. Give us parks and gardens green, sweet.

And laughter, like your bird-songs pure, un-satyr-like, though clever,

Bless our boys, our girls, our babies, yes—and bring us back our Jabez,

And we'll pardon your delay, and say 'tis better late than never!