26
HAWTHORN TIDE
Though ever the sight that salutes them again and
adores them awhile is blest,
And the heart is a hymn, and the sense is a soul, and
the soul is a song.
Alone on a dyke's trenched edge, and afar from the
blossoming wildwood's verge,
Laughs and lightens a sister, triumphal in love-lit pride;
Clothed round with the sun, and inviolate: her blossoms
exult as the springtide surge,
When the wind and the dawn enkindle the snows of
the shoreward tide.
Hardly the worship of old that rejoiced as it knelt in the
vision
Shown of the God new-born whose breath is the
spirit of spring
Hailed ever with love more strong and defiant of death's
derision
A joy more perfect than here we mourn for as May
takes wing.
