LITMIR.BIZ

        And in the city oft, when swims

        The pale moon o'er the smoke that dims

        Its disc, I dream of wildwood limbs;

          And still, and still,

        I seem to hear, where shadows grope

        Mid ferns and flowers that dewdrops rope,—

        Lost in faint deeps of heliotrope

        Above the clover-sweetened slope,—

        Retreat, despairing, past all hope,

          The whippoorwill, the whippoorwill.

          A sense of sadness in the golden air;

          A pensiveness, that has no part in care,

        As if the Season, by some woodland pool,

          Braiding the early blossoms in her hair,

          Seeing her loveliness reflected there,

        Had sighed to find herself so beautiful.

          A breathlessness; a feeling as of fear;

          Holy and dim, as of a mystery near,

        As if the World, about us, whispering went

          With lifted finger and hand-hollowed ear,

          Hearkening a music, that we cannot hear,

        Haunting the quickening earth and firmament.

          A prescience of the soul that has no name;

          Expectancy that is both wild and tame,

        As if the Earth, from out its azure ring

          Of heavens, looked to see, as white as flame,—

          As Perseus once to chained Andromeda came,—

        The swift, divine revealment of the Spring.

        In the frail hepaticas,—

          That the early Springtide tossed,

        Sapphire-like, along the ways

          Of the woodlands that she crossed,—

        I behold, with other eyes,

          Footprints of a dream that flies.

        One who leads me; whom I seek:

          In whose loveliness there is

        All the glamour that the Greek

          Knew as wind-borne Artemis.—

        I am mortal. Woe is me!

          Her sweet immortality!

        Spirit, must I always fare,

          Following thy averted looks?

        Now thy white arm, now thy hair,

          Glimpsed among the trees and brooks?

        Thou who hauntest, whispering,

          All the slopes and vales of Spring.

        Cease to lure! or grant to me

          All thy beauty! though it pain,

        Slay with splendor utterly!

          Flash revealment on my brain!

        And one moment let me see

          All thy immortality!

        The wind that breathes of columbines

        And celandines that crowd the rocks;

        That shakes the balsam of the pines

        With laughter from his airy locks,

        Stops at my city door and knocks.

        He calls me far a-forest, where

        The twin-leaf and the blood-root bloom;

        And, circled by the amber air,

        Life sits with beauty and perfume

        Weaving the new web of her loom.

        He calls me where the waters run

        Through fronding ferns where wades the hern;

        And, sparkling in the equal sun,

        Song leans above her brimming urn,

        And dreams the dreams that love shall learn.

        The wind has summoned, and I go:

        To read God's meaning in each line

        The wildflowers write; and, walking slow,

        God's purpose, of which song is sign,—

        The wind's great, gusty hand in mine.

        The tufted gold of the sassafras,

          And the gold of the spicewood-bush,

        Bewilder the ways of the forest pass,

          And brighten the underbrush:

        The white-starred drifts of the wild-plum tree,

          And the haw with its pearly plumes,

        And the redbud, misted rosily,

          Dazzle the woodland glooms.

        And I hear the song of the catbird wake

          I' the boughs o' the gnarled wild-crab,

        Or there where the snows of the dogwood shake,

          That the silvery sunbeams stab:

        And it seems to me that a magic lies

          In the crystal sweet of its notes,

        That a myriad blossoms open their eyes

          As its strain above them floats.

        I see the bluebell's blue unclose,

          And the trillium's stainless white;

        The birdfoot-violet's purple and rose,

          And the poppy, golden-bright!

        And I see the eyes of the bluet wink,

          And the heads of the white-hearts nod;

        And the baby mouths of the woodland-pink

          And sorrel salute the sod.

        And this, meseems, does the catbird say,

          As the blossoms crowd i' the sun:—

        "Up, up! and out! oh, out and away!

          Up, up! and out, each one!

        Sweethearts! sweethearts! oh, sweet, sweet, sweet!

          Come listen and hark to me!

        The Spring, the Spring, with her fragrant feet,

          Is

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