AH! my heart is weary waiting,
Waiting for the May,—
Waiting for the pleasant rambles
Where the fragrant hawthorn-brambles,
With the woodbine alternating,
Scent the dewy way.
Ah! my heart is weary waiting,
Waiting for the May.
Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
Longing for the May,
Longing to escape from study,
To the young face fair and ruddy,
And the thousand charms belonging
To the summer's day.
Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
Longing for the May.
Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,
Sighing for the May,
Sighing for their sure returning,
When the summer beams are burning,
Hopes and flowers that, dead or dying,
All the winter lay.
Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,
Sighing for the May.
Come with bows bent and with emptying of
quivers,
Maiden most perfect, lady of light,
With a noise of winds and many rivers,
With a clamor of waters, and with might;
Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet,
Over the splendor and speed of thy feet!
For the faint cast quickens, the wan west shivers,
Round the feet of the day and the feet of the
night.
Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,
Fold our hands round her knees and cling?
O that man's heart were as fire and could spring
to her,
Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!
For the stars and the winds are unto her
As raiment, as songs of the harp-player;
For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,
And the southwest-wind and the west-wind
sing.
For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
Ah! my heart is pained with throbbing, And in green underwood and cover
Throbbing for the May,
Throbbing for the seaside billows,
Or the water-wooing willows;
Where, in laughing and in sobbing,
Glide the streams away.
Ah! my heart, my heart is throbbing.
Throbbing for the May.
Waiting sad, dejected, weary,
Waiting for the May:
Spring goes by with wasted warnings, -
Moonlit evenings, sunbright mornings,
Summer comes, yet dark and dreary
Life still ebbs away;
Man is ever weary, weary,
Waiting for the May!
DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY.
WHEN THE HOUNDS OF SPRING. WHEN the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain;
And the brown bright nightingale amorous
Is half assuaged for Itylus,
For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces;
The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.
The full streams feed on flower of rushes,
Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot,
The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes
From leaf to flower and flower to fruit;
And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire,
And the oat is heard above the lyre,
And the hooféd heel of a satyr crushes
The chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root.
And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night,
Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid,
Follows with dancing and fills with delight
The Mænad and the Bassarid;
And soft as lips that laugh and hide,
The laughing leaves of the trees divide,
And screen from seeing and leave in sight
The god pursuing, the maiden hid.
The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair
Over her eyebrows shading her eyes;
The wild vine slipping down leaves bare
Her bright breast shortening into sighs;
The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves,
But the berried ivy catches and cleaves
To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare
The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
THE winter being over,
In order comes the spring,
Which doth green herbs discover,
And cause the birds to sing.
The night also expired,
Then comes the morning bright,
Which is so much desired
By all that love the light.
This may learn
Them that mourn,
To put their grief to flight:
The spring succeedeth winter,
And day must follow night.
He therefore that sustaineth
Affliction or distress
Which every member paineth,
And findeth no release,
Let such therefore despair not,
But on firm hope depend,
Whose griefs immortal are not,
And therefore must have end.
They that faint
With complaint
Therefore are to blame;
They add to their afflictions,
And amplify the same.
For if they could with patience
Awhile possess the mind,
By inward consolations
They might refreshing find,
To sweeten all their crosses
That little time they 'dure;
So might they gain by losses,
And sharp would sweet procure.
But if the mind
Be inclined
To unquietness,
That only may be called The worst of all distress.
He that is melancholy,
Detesting all delight,
His wits by sottish folly
Are ruinated quite.
Sad discontent and murmurs
To him are incident;
Were he possessed of honors,
He could not be content.
Sparks of joy
Fly away;
Floods of care arise;
And all delightful motion
In the conception dies.
WRITTEN WHILE A PRISONER IN ENGLAND.
THE Time hath laid his mantle by
Of wind and rain and icy chill,
And dons a rich embroidery
Of sunlight poured on lake and hill.
No beast or bird in earth or sky,
Whose voice doth not with gladness thrill, For Time hath laid his mantle by Of wind and rain and icy chill. River and fountain, brook and rill, Bespangled o'er with livery gay Of silver droplets, wind their way. All in their new apparel vie, For Time hath laid his mantle by.
GOD shield ye, heralds of the spring,
Ye faithful swallows, fleet of wing,
Houps, cuckoos, nightingales,
Turtles, and every wilder bird,
That make your hundred chirpings heard
Through the green woods and dales.
God shield ye, Easter daisies all,
Fair roses, buds, and blossoms small,
And he whom erst the gore
Of Ajax and Narciss did print,
Ye wild thyme, anise, balm, and mint,
I welcome ye once more.
God shield ye, bright embroidered train
Of butterflies, that on the plain
Of each sweet herblet sip;
And ye, new swarms of bees, that go Where the pink flowers and yellow grow To kiss them with your lip.
LAUD the first spring daisies;
Chant aloud their praises;
Send the children up
To the high hill's top;
Tax not the strength of their young hands
To increase your lands.
Gather the primroses,
Make handfuls into posies;
Come, come into the wood;
Pierce into the bowers
Of these gentle flowers,
Which, not in solitude
Dwell, but with each other keep society:
And with a simple piety,
Are ready to be woven into garlands for the good.
Take them to the little girls who are at work in Or, upon summer earth,
To die, in virgin worth ;.
Or to be strewn before the bride,
And the bridegroom, by her side.
Children, come forth to play :
Grant freedom to the children in this joyous Worship the God of Nature in your childhood;
Worship him at your tasks with best endeavor;
Worship him in your sports; worship him ever;
Lo! where the rosy-bosomed Hours,
Fair Venus' train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
The untaught harmony of spring:
While, whispering pleasure as they fly,
Cool zephyrs through the clear blue sky
Their gathered fragrance fling.
Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader, browner shade,
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade,
Beside some water's rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclined in rustic state)
How vain the ardor of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great!
Still is the toiling hand of care;
The panting herds repose:
Yet hark, how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!
The insect youth are on the wing,
SWEETLY BREATHING, VERNAL AIR.
SWEETLY breathing, vernal air,
That with kind warmth doth repair
Winter's ruins; from whose breast
All the gums and spice of the East
Borrow their perfumes; whose eye
Gilds the morn, and clears the sky;
Whose dishevelled tresses shed
Pearls upon the violet bed;
On whose brow, with calm smiles drest
The halcyon sits and builds her nest;
Beauty, youth, and endless spring
Dwell upon thy rosy wing!
Thou, if stormy Boreas throws
Down whole forests when he blows,
With a pregnant, flowery birth,
Canst refresh the teeming earth.
If he nip the early bud,
If he blast what's fair or good,
If he scatter our choice flowers,
If he shake our halls or bowers,
If his rude breath threaten us,
Thou canst stroke great Eolus,
And from him the grace obtain,
To bind him in an iron chain.
BEHOLD the young, the rosy Spring
Gives to the breeze her scented wing,
While virgin graces, warm with May,
Fling roses o'er her dewy way.
The murmuring billows of the deep
Have languished into silent sleep;
And mark the flitting sea-birds lave
Their plumes in the reflecting wave;
While cranes from hoary winter fly
To flutter in a kinder sky.
Now the genial star of day
Dissolves the murky clouds away,
And cultured field and winding stream
Are freshly glittering in his beam.
Now the earth prolific swells
With leafy buds and flowery bells;
Gemming shoots the olive twine;
Clusters bright festoon the vine;
All along the branches creeping,
Through the velvet foliage peeping,
Little infant fruits we see
Nursing into luxury.
ANACREON (Greek). Translation
of THOMAS MOORE.
SPRING, THE SWEET SPRING.
SPRING, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king;
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring, Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing, Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay,
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a sunning sit,
In every street these tunes our ears do greet,
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
Spring! the sweet spring!
Found, it seems, the halcyon morn
To hoar February born;
Bending from heaven, in azure mirth,
It kissed the forehead of the earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free,
And waked to music all their fountains,
And breathed upon the frozen mountains,
And like a prophetess of May
Strewed flowers upon the barren way,
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.
Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs,
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music, lest it should not find
An echo in another's mind,
While the touch of nature's art
Harmonizes heart to heart.
Radiant Sister of the Day,
Awake! arise! and come away!
To the wild woods and the plains,
To the pools where winter rains
Image all their roof of leaves,
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green, and ivy dun,
Round stems that never kiss the sun,
Where the lawns and pastures be
And the sand-hills of the sea,
Where the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets,
And wind-flowers and violets
Which yet join not scent to hue
Crown the pale year weak and new;
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dim and blind,
And the blue noon is over us,
And the multitudinous
Billows murmur at our feet,
Where the earth and ocean meet,
And all things seem only one
In the universal sun.
BEST and brightest, come away,
Fairer far than this fair day,
Which, like thee, to those in sorrow
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough year just awake
In its cradle on the brake.
The brightest hour of unborn spring
Through the winter wandering,
SEE, the flowery spring is blown,
Let us leave the smoky town;
From the mall, and from the ring,
Every one has taken wing;
Chloe, Strephon, Corydon,
To the meadows all are gone.
What is left you worth your stay?
Come, Aurelia, come away.
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