POETRY: A Magazine of Verse
SPRING SORROW
There comes a time in the early spring of the year,
Before the buds have broken,
When sorrow lays its hush upon the world
In syllables unspoken:
Sorrow deep as the spheres of darkened moons,
The sorrow that blindly knows
The futility of all unfolding, and the fading
Of every flower that grows.
Cool is the earth with the drooping of unspilled rain,
And the imminence of tears.
The buds lie under the stifling bark of the twigs,
Suppressed with haunting fears.
The flowers are too deep beneath the fettered earth,
Too closely bound in coil
To raise the petals of their deluding beauty
Above the loosened soil.
The mighty winds of the winter have gone down—
No breath of motion stirs.
There is no flame of impulse anywhere;
Not even a bird's wing whirs.
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