Exultant in the grey, uncertain light,
Out of a dream the bird-voice seemed to break,
As if it rang from woods and fields of home,
Proclaiming, "Spring is here. Awake! awake!"
No mateless wanderer, I said, would roam
So far from sheltering copse and meadows bright,
Some prisoned thrush is trying thus to drown
Memories of love and spring that haunt him yet.
O restless songster! crying to be free,
Dost thou remember love and liberty —
And I forget?
I know where gold lent-lilies wave afield,
Where April keeps her white ungathered store
Of violets, where the trembling cuckoo-flowers
Fringe the brown roots of budding sycamore;
Green nooks where birds between the spring-tide showers
Make passionate music; where old pastures yield
Their cowslip bells to little children's hands:
Ah, weary bird! these are but shadow lands.
Then the dawn showed me where, unfaltering,
A thrush unfettered on a blackened tree
Thrilled these wild strains of love and ecstasy
In praise of spring.
Good Words.C. Brooke