The Home Book of Verse Volume Iii Part 10

I clink my castanet And beat my little drum; For spring at last has come, And on my parapet, Of chestnut, gummy-wet, Where bees begin to hum, I clink my castanet, And beat my little drum.

"Spring goes," you say, "suns set."

So be it! Why be glum?

Enough, the spring has come; And without fear or fret I clink my castanet, And beat my little drum.

James Cousins [1873-

"WHEN DAFFODILS BEGIN TO PEER"

From "The Winter's Tale"

When daffodils begin to peer, With heigh! the doxy, over the dale, Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year; For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge, With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!

Doth set my pugging tooth on edge; For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

The, lark, that tirra-lirra chants, With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay, Are summer songs for me and my aunts, While we lie tumbling in the hay.

William Shakespeare [1564-1616]

SPRING From "In Memoriam"

Lx.x.xIII Dip down upon the northern sh.o.r.e, O sweet new-year, delaying long; Thou doest expectant Nature wrong, Delaying long, delay no more.

What stays thee from the clouded noons, Thy sweetness from its proper place?

Can trouble live with April days, Or sadness in the summer moons?

Bring orchis, bring the fox-glove spire, The little speedwell's darling blue, Deep tulips dashed with fiery dew, Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire.

O thou, new-year, delaying long, Delayest the sorrow in my blood, That longs to burst a frozen bud, And flood a fresher throat with song.

CXV Now fades the last long streak of snow, Now burgeons every maze of quick About the flowering squares, and thick By ashen roots the violets blow.

Now rings the woodland loud and long, The distance takes a lovelier hue, And drowned in yonder living blue The lark becomes a sightless song.

Now dance the lights on lawn and lea, The flocks are whiter down the vale, And milkier every milky sail, On winding stream or distant sea;

Where now the seamew pipes, or dives In yonder greening gleam, and fly The happy birds, that change their sky To build and brood, that live their lives

From land to land; and in my breast Spring wakens too: and my regret Become an April violet, And buds and blossoms like the rest.

Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892]

"THE SPRING RETURNS"

The Spring returns! What matters then that War On the horizon like a beacon burns, That Death ascends, man's most desired star, That Darkness is his hope? The Spring returns!

Triumphant through the wider-arched cope She comes, she comes, unto her tyranny, And at her coronation are set ope The prisons of the mind, and man is free!

The beggar-garbed or over-bent with snows, Each mortal, long defeated, disallowed, Feeling her touch, grows stronger limbed, and knows The purple on his shoulders and is proud.

The Spring returns! O madness beyond sense, Breed in our bones thine own omnipotence!

Charles Leonard Moore [1854-

"WHEN THE HOUNDS OF SPRING"

Chorus from "Atalanta in Calydon"

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 a.s.suaged for Itylus, For the Thracian s.h.i.+ps and the foreign faces, The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.

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 east quickens, the wan west s.h.i.+vers, 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, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

The full streams feed on flower of rushes, Ripe gra.s.ses 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 hoofed 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 Maenad and the Ba.s.sarid; And soft as lips that laugh and hide The laughing leaves of the trees divide, And screen from seeing and leave in sight The G.o.d pursuing, the maiden hid.

The ivy falls with the Baccha.n.a.l's hair Over her eyebrows hiding 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 [1837-1909]

SONG

Again rejoicing Nature sees Her robe a.s.sume its vernal hues; Her leafy locks wave in the breeze, All freshly steeped in morning dews.

In vain to me the cowslips blaw, In vain to me the violets spring; In vain to me in glen or shaw, The mavis and the lintwhite sing.

The merry ploughboy cheers his team, Wi' joy the tentie seedsman stalks, But life to me's a weary dream, A dream of ane that never wauks.

The wanton coot the water skims, Amang the reeds the ducklings cry, The stately swan majestic swims, And everything is blest but I.

The shepherd steeks his faulding slap, And owre the moorland whistles shrill; Wi' wild, unequal, wand'ring step I meet him on the dewy hill.