Shrewd winds and shrill--were these the speech of May?
A ragged, slag-grey sky--invested so, Mary's spoilt nursling! wert thou wont to go?
Or THOU, Sun-god and song-god, say Could singer pipe one tiniest linnet-lay, While Song did turn away his face from song?
Or who could be In spirit or in body hale for long, -Old AEsculap's best Master!--lacking thee?
At length, then, thou art here!
On the earth's lethed ear Thy voice of light rings out exultant, strong;Through dreams she stirs and murmurs at that summons dear:
From its red leash my heart strains tamelessly, For Spring leaps in the womb of the young year!
Nay, was it not brought forth before, And we waited, to behold it, Till the sun's hand should unfold it, What the year's young bosom bore?
Even so; it came, nor knew we that it came, In the sun's eclipse.
Yet the birds have plighted vows, And from the branches pipe each other's name;Yet the season all the boughs Has kindled to the finger-tips, -Mark yonder, how the long laburnum drips Its jocund spilth of fire, its honey of wild flame!
Yea, and myself put on swift quickening, And answer to the presence of a sudden Spring.
From cloud-zoned pinnacles of the secret spirit Song falls precipitant in dizzying streams;And, like a mountain-hold when war-shouts stir it, The mind's recessed fastness casts to light Its gleaming multitudes, that from every height Unfurl the flaming of a thousand dreams.