Classic Poem

With the early dawn I'm waking,
And joy is in the air;
The song of birds is breaking
The silence everywhere;
And my heart is full of longing
I cannot all allay,
In dear old haunts to welcome
The coming of the May.

In those rare enchanted orchards
Where peach and apple bloom
Are filling all the long bright hours
With delicate perfume,
Or within the grand old forests
Where sun and shadow play,
'Twere very sweet again to greet
The coming of the May

There are such countless treasures
In forests far away—
The starry-eyed anemones,
And lady-slippers gay;
And I can tell the very spot
Where orchids hide away
Their pretty precious faces
Till the coming of the May.

I know just where the violets
Bloom in the meadow hedge,
And where the pink arbutus trails
Adown the river ledge;
Where trilliums and blue-bells low
Are bowing all the day,
To welcome with their dainty grace
The coming of the May.

And the slopes upon the hilltops
Where grows the mountain tea,
Where sassafras and birch abound,
Are known so well to me;
And the bends of brook and river
Where trout and turtle stay,
And mussel-shells gleam whitely
In the coming of the May.

Where the robin is a-singing,
'Twere joy again to go—
I've heard sometimes a music
In the cawing of the crow—
Where the bobolink is trilling
His merry roundelay,
For all glad things are gladder
In the coming of the May.

Yet I, my feet returning
To childhood's haunts again,
Might find them very barren
And strangely full of pain;
The forms that wandered with me
Would be shadows in the way,
And my heart might e'en be heavy
In the coming of the May.

But, with earnest, eager longing
I cannot well define,
I'm turning to the meadows,
The woods of birch and pine.
Ah Memory, be kind to me!
Let all else fade away,
But spare my heart its rapture
In the coming of the May!