Spring's Pilgrimage.
When Spring is born of Winter
Then there comes a day
In early April with the warmth of May,
The clouds go gadding and the winds turn mild,
And Spring is born in sunlight,
Merry child!
Her nurse is April with the misty eyes;
The birds sing round her cradle
Where she lies
In green-streaked woodlands by the mantled ponds,
Where the young ferns unfurl their snaky fronds.
She comes up from the South
With a bird whistle on her pouting mouth,
And sits upon some hill
Her mother, Winter, has kept cold and still,
Till her Sun-lover melts the snow--
Then out the strong floods go.
Leaping like horses to the sea,
And the green frogs go mad with glee.
Ah! When that child is on her way
The trees make ready, in the North
The robins herald her
And the buds put forth.
Puss Willow's little catkins are a-stir,
And it is all, is all for her!
But for a little while
She lingers in the South.
Wandering the moss-draped aisle,
Brushing the shiest flowers with her mouth.
Tuning her swanny throat
To the lush warble of the swamp-bird's note,
Beneath the lamp-hung jasmine's vine tent
Her warm, delicious childhood soon is spent.
Then forth she fares,
About the middle of the month of May,
A young girl, wild-eyed, gay;
The mountains are her stairs,
The birds her harbingers,
With merry song
The peewit pipes her as she trips along--
The trumpet flowers blow fanfares.
Even the sea caves know her
And deep down
The mermen chime the bells
In some dim town,
Where wrecks lie rotten and forgotten;
The shark's fin glides
More avidly among the sea-isle tides--
The whole glad earth
Hails her with gales of mirth.
The frantic midges dance;
There is tumultuous lowing from the cattle.
When Spring fares northward from the South,
The young sun hungers for her cherry mouth
And the black stallions scream as if in battle.
Summer.
Now come the Dog Days
When the fat-faced sun
Like Falstaff pours hot jest
On Prince and thieves;
The earth at morning smokes
And at high noon
Straight downward point the listless hanging leaves.
_Come, love, come, come away with me,
Beneath the arbor tree,
Where is sweet greenery and shade within;
Shall we not take our ease in love's own inn?_
Come to that elfin place
Where fawns feed on the tender grass
And slim, shy shepherds come
To see their sunburnt face
Upon a water glass,
Miraculously still--
Ah! Magic pool! They let the lead-sheep's bell
Grow fainter, fainter down the winding dell,
Until the only tone
That comes is the far "_lina-lina-lone_"
Of strayed sheep wandering on a windy hill.
_Come, love, come, come away with me;
Drink from the coldest spring,
Where little frogs make Attic melody,
Tonight, perhaps, some moon-fooled bird will sing._
Dog Days,
I wish my love
Would come and live with me,
Beneath a tented tree,
The lush catalpa that in summer flowers,
Sol, I could laugh at thee!
If dalliance and sweet kisses sped the hours.
Autumn Portents.
The amber foam creams from the cider flagons,
Backward the shadow of the ground-hog shrinks,
The lanes creak with the laden harvest wagons,
And the fur thickens on the owl-eyed lynx,
The hunter sees cold mist about the moon,
And in the bottom lands at morn,
The print of tiny, thievish, fairy hands
Where the raccoon last night went stealing corn.
Autumn Invocation.
"The seasons wait their turn among the stars."
Come from the blinding sun fields where you are,
Come from the interspace of star and star,
Summer lies sleeping in her dusty tomb,
The owlets mourn her through the woodland's gloom
Where all the night birds are.
_Autumn, come down!_
Into the columned forests cast your torches,
Light all their shadowed aisles like temple porches,
Stop at the Dog Star first and snatch his fire,
Bold sun-hot yellow and the red that scorches
To light dead summer's funeral pyre.
_Autumn, come down!_
Lean down, High Lady, from your starry arch,
Over the maples and the fragrant larch,
Stoop down some frosty night,
Like a proud maiden from an old, walled town
Tossing a rainbow favor to her knight.
_Lean down, lean down!_
Come take our northern forests for your palace,
Dance in the witch fires of the borealis,
Stand misty-eyed upon the mountain tops
Or sit and gaze,
With wind-twitched cloak and merry, cast-back hood,
Down valleys purpled by the grape-blue haze,
Beside some flaming wood.
Come throw your mad _flambeaux_
Till all the motley, fire-streaked woodlands glow!
_Autumn, come down!_
Lady, how often must I ask it?
Proud plenty, if you will, with vine-wreathed basket
Shall bring you offerings of damasked plums--
For you in orchards mellow peaches plash
All night.
The lichens whiten on the lonely ash,
The clover blackens and the last bee hums.
_Autumn, come down,_
You brown-skinned sorceress,
And witch the leaves, for harvest home,
And bear the nodding sheaves
Into the red barns by the little town,
_Autumn, come down, come down!_