[A] From “Old-Fashioned Roses,” copyright 1906. Used by special
permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.
“I JOURNEYED SOUTH TO MEET THE SPRING”
I JOURNEYED South to meet the Spring
To feel the soft tide’s gentle rise
That to my heart again should bring,
Foretold by many a whispering wing,
The old, the new, the sweet surprise.
For once, the wonder was not new—
And yet it wore a newer grace:
For all its innocence of hue,
Its warmth and bloom and dream and dew,
I had but left—in Helen’s face.
_Robert Underwood Johnson._