I.
Ere wild haws, looming in the glooms,
Build bolted drifts of breezy blooms;
And in the whistling hollow there
The red-bud bends as brown and bare
As buxom Roxy's up-stripped arm;
From some slick hickory or larch,
Sighed o'er the sodden meads of March,
The sad heart thrills and reddens warm
To hear thee braving the rough storm,
Frail courier of green-gathering powers,--
Rebelling sap in trunks and flowers;
Love's minister come heralding;
O sweet saint-voice among bleak bowers!--
Thou brown-red pursuivant of Spring!
II.
"_Moan_" sob the woodland cascades still
Down bloomless ledges of the hill;
And gray, gaunt clouds like harpies hang
In harpy heavens, and swoop and clang
Sharp beaks and talons of the wind:
Black scowl the forests, and unkind
The far fields as the near; while song
Seems murdered and all passion, wrong.
One wild frog only in the thaw
Of spawny pools wakes cold and raw,
Expires a melancholy bass
And stops as if bewildered; then
Along the frowning wood again,
Flung in the thin wind's fangy face,
Thou, in red, woolly tassels proud
Of bannered maples, flutest loud:
"_Her Grace! her Grace! her Grace!_"
III.
"Her Grace! her Grace! her Grace!"
Climbs beautiful and sunny-browed
Up, up the kindling hills and wakes
Blue berries in the berry brakes;
With fragrant flakes, that blow and bleach,
Deep powders smothered quince and peach;
Eyes dogwoods with a thousand eyes;
Teaches each sod how to be wise
With twenty wild-flowers for one weed;
And kisses germs that they may seed.
In purest purple and sweet white
Treads up the happier hills of light;
Bloom, cloudy-borne, song in her hair,
Long dew-drops her pale fingers fair:
Big wind-retainers, and the rains
Her yeomen strong that flash the plains;
While scarlet mists at dawn,--and gold
At eve,--her panoply enfold.--
Her herald tabarded behold!--
Awake to greet! prepare to sing!
She comes, the darling Duchess, Spring!"
