A Maying
PART FIRST .
Now sitting under orchard limbs,
When all the world has gone a-Maying,
Oh, how the fancy soars and skims,
With yonder fitful swallow playing!
Like snowy tents, the trees in bloom
Stand courting every bee that's winging;
And in the depths of their perfume
A whole community is singing.
The wind upon these murmuring bowers,
From out the fields of clover blowing,
Shakes down a storm of scented flowers,
As if to fright me with its snowing.
The blue-bird, which from Southern skies
Takes yearly on his wings their azure,
Now through the falling blossoms flies,
And thrills the passing air with pleasure.
Oh, would that I could thus take flight,
And be, like him, the earliest comer,
That all should hear me with delight,
And bless the song that promised summer!
Along the quiet, neighbouring town,
The children chant their gladsome marches;
Each with a woodland gathered crown, —
Some under flowery iris-arches.
Afar and near the music swells —
The breeze is glad to waft their singing,
For never chime of fairy bells
Filled poet's soul with sweeter ringing.
See where they go! — a very cloud
With rosy pleasure overladen!
Sure Flora hath to-day endowed
With her own form each little maiden.
A gladness thrills the waiting grove
While they go singing gayly over; —
The very fields are waked to love,
And nod them welcome with the clover.
And every flower where stoops the breeze
With just enough of force to stir it,
Rings out its little chime of bees,
In pleasure from its vernal turret.
The springs release their fullest floods,
From earth's o'erflowing heart, unbidden.
The woodlands ope their latest buds,
There's not a leaf that may be hidden
Yes, surely there's a love abroad,
Through every nerve of nature playing, —
And all between the sky and sod,
All, all the world has gone a-Maying!
SECOND PART .
Oh, wherefore do I sit and give
My Fancy up to idle playing?
Too well I know the half who live —
One-half the world is NOT a-Maying.
Where are the dwellers of the lanes,
The alleys of the stifled city?
Where the waste forms whose sad remains
Woo Death to come for very pity?
Where they who tend the busy loom,
With pallid cheek and torn apparel?
The buds they weave will never bloom,
Their staring birds will never carol.
It may be at the thought, their souls
Are crushed to-day in their abasement, —
Oh, better they should house with owls,
With poison vines about their casement!
And where the young of every size
The factories draw from every by-way,
Whose violets are each other's eyes,
But dull as by a dusty highway? —
Whose cotton lilies only grow
'Mid whirring wheels, on jarring spindles,
Their roses in the hectic glow
To tell how fast the small life dwindles?
Or she who plies the midnight thread
The while her orphan ones are sleeping,
And trembles lest, for want of bread,
They start from troubled dreams to weeping?
Not all the floral wealth that sweeps
The brow of May in splendour shining,
Were worth to her the crust that keeps
Her little ones to-day from pining.
Where are the dusky miners? they
Who, even in the earth descending,
Know well the night before their May
Is one which has in life no ending?
To them 'tis still a joy, I ween,
To know, while through the darkness going,
That o'er their heads the smiling queen
Stands with her countless garlands glowing.
Oh, ye who toil in living tombs
Of light or dark — no rest receiving,
Far o'er your heads a May-time blooms —
Oh, then be patient and believing.
Be patient — when Earth's winter fails,
The weary night which keeps ye staying —
Then through the broad celestial vales
Your spirits shall go out a-Maying!
Now sitting under orchard limbs,
When all the world has gone a-Maying,
Oh, how the fancy soars and skims,
With yonder fitful swallow playing!
Like snowy tents, the trees in bloom
Stand courting every bee that's winging;
And in the depths of their perfume
A whole community is singing.
The wind upon these murmuring bowers,
From out the fields of clover blowing,
Shakes down a storm of scented flowers,
As if to fright me with its snowing.
The blue-bird, which from Southern skies
Takes yearly on his wings their azure,
Now through the falling blossoms flies,
And thrills the passing air with pleasure.
Oh, would that I could thus take flight,
And be, like him, the earliest comer,
That all should hear me with delight,
And bless the song that promised summer!
Along the quiet, neighbouring town,
The children chant their gladsome marches;
Each with a woodland gathered crown, —
Some under flowery iris-arches.
Afar and near the music swells —
The breeze is glad to waft their singing,
For never chime of fairy bells
Filled poet's soul with sweeter ringing.
See where they go! — a very cloud
With rosy pleasure overladen!
Sure Flora hath to-day endowed
With her own form each little maiden.
A gladness thrills the waiting grove
While they go singing gayly over; —
The very fields are waked to love,
And nod them welcome with the clover.
And every flower where stoops the breeze
With just enough of force to stir it,
Rings out its little chime of bees,
In pleasure from its vernal turret.
The springs release their fullest floods,
From earth's o'erflowing heart, unbidden.
The woodlands ope their latest buds,
There's not a leaf that may be hidden
Yes, surely there's a love abroad,
Through every nerve of nature playing, —
And all between the sky and sod,
All, all the world has gone a-Maying!
SECOND PART .
Oh, wherefore do I sit and give
My Fancy up to idle playing?
Too well I know the half who live —
One-half the world is NOT a-Maying.
Where are the dwellers of the lanes,
The alleys of the stifled city?
Where the waste forms whose sad remains
Woo Death to come for very pity?
Where they who tend the busy loom,
With pallid cheek and torn apparel?
The buds they weave will never bloom,
Their staring birds will never carol.
It may be at the thought, their souls
Are crushed to-day in their abasement, —
Oh, better they should house with owls,
With poison vines about their casement!
And where the young of every size
The factories draw from every by-way,
Whose violets are each other's eyes,
But dull as by a dusty highway? —
Whose cotton lilies only grow
'Mid whirring wheels, on jarring spindles,
Their roses in the hectic glow
To tell how fast the small life dwindles?
Or she who plies the midnight thread
The while her orphan ones are sleeping,
And trembles lest, for want of bread,
They start from troubled dreams to weeping?
Not all the floral wealth that sweeps
The brow of May in splendour shining,
Were worth to her the crust that keeps
Her little ones to-day from pining.
Where are the dusky miners? they
Who, even in the earth descending,
Know well the night before their May
Is one which has in life no ending?
To them 'tis still a joy, I ween,
To know, while through the darkness going,
That o'er their heads the smiling queen
Stands with her countless garlands glowing.
Oh, ye who toil in living tombs
Of light or dark — no rest receiving,
Far o'er your heads a May-time blooms —
Oh, then be patient and believing.
Be patient — when Earth's winter fails,
The weary night which keeps ye staying —
Then through the broad celestial vales
Your spirits shall go out a-Maying!
Translation:
Language:
Reviews
No reviews yet.