Spring pipes an airy measure
That only he can play:
I caught its echo on the hill
This morning while the world was still
And the dreamy hollows began to fill
With a laughing rumour of day.
The hours of sleep are over,
The wintry night is past;
Spring pipes his joyance far and near
And hope awakes in hearts that hear,
As the bud and leaf and bloom o’ the year
Shall wake to his calling at last.
Adown through greening valleys,
Up over hill and wold--
Oh, youth and joy and love are met
In every note his lips beget!
And the world shall hear and follow him yet,
And forget it is growing old.
’TWIXT DAWN AND DAY
If you were gone, and any anodyne
Could drown in deep forgetfulness benign
All thought of all things past,
Until, at last,
I had forgotten too
Even the dearer memory of you--
In some dim hour betwixt the dawn and day,
When I awoke to feel how bleak and grey
My life without you spread,
Then from the dead
Those memories would upstart
And one--the thought of you would break my heart.
And passing thus, could lapse of day and year
Keep me still distant from you there as here?
Nay, for remembering so
Were hence to go
Back through the years a space
And where we parted make our meeting place.