Classic Poem

The sweet Spring-season is the Youth of the year,
And Youth the high Spring-season of our days;
That ever-alternating Youth I praise
Which makes our fugitive Spring-season dear.

As the light vapours of an Alpine dawn
Fledged by the sun swim upward into air,
And dress the morn with plumes of pearl and rare
Laces of shimmering silk and windy lawn;

So, scarce unheard, the saps are on the wing,
And from the brooding-bottoms of the field
In jets, and drifts, and spiry steams unsealed,
Urge to the light and pave the floors of spring.

The strong South-wind uprising from the sea
On his broad shoulders arched the cumbering wrack
Of Winter, as the countryman rolls back
His wagon-tilt, and left the heaven free.

Pure light at noon the flawless arc embayed,
And evening beams along the horizon gilded,
Sailing the northern sky, the vapour-builded
Ballooned leviathans in cavalcade.

First on the weedy spits and level beaches
The tide's invasion, mystically led,
Swings and enlarges; then the heavier head,
Gathering all along the cliff-bound reaches,

Obliterates the scored sea-sand, and flushes
Each inmost coign and pocket of the shore,
Clapping against the rock as more and more
Falls to his long assaults and foamy rushes.

The tides of sap, the sea of vital juices
Reclaiming their surrendered coasts, begin
The tree-tops and the crust of earth to win;
Then full the high creative humour sluices

Broad naps of grass and lines of curious leaf,
Horn-tips of dewy bud, and bubbled flowers
Blown through the stiff glebe, as the secret powers
Play tenderly up in colour and relief.

I walk in dewy forage ankle-deep
Of warm grass growing — such a florison
Of white and yellow quilted thereupon,
In fields awaked to laughter out of sleep!

Quick buds wrap all the hedges in a net;
Beside what gossamer green webs take place
Spun high up yonder in the air to enlace
The grey stems of the beech. No leaf as yet:

A hive of specks, a point of airy stitches
Half seen, half dreamed, to veil the lady limes;
And a green swarm of curly favours climbs
The captain oaks and signal poplar-switches.