I had no heart to write to thee in prose,
The sadness in me sore demanded song;
But the song came not,--laggard as the birds,
That will not sing us back the little leaves.
O winter of my heart--when comes the spring?
I am sore weary of these deathlike days,
This shroud unheaving of eternal snow,--
O winter of my heart--when comes the spring?
’Tis time to answer, O nightingale,--
’Tis thine to sing the winter all away,
Release the world from bondage, and bring back
The sound of many waters and of trees,
And little sleeping lives anumb with cold,--
Yea! all the resurrection of the world.
O winter of my heart! O nightingale!
_Harper’s_ _Richard Le Gallienne_