Poems (Chandler)/The Spring is Late

by Louise Chandler Moulton

THE SPRING IS LATE.

HE stood alone amidst the April fields,—
 Brown, sodden fields, all desolate and bare,—
"The spring is late," she said,—"the faithless spring,
 That should have come to make the meadows fair.

"Their sweet South left too soon, among the trees
 The birds, bewildered, flutter to and fro;
For them no green boughs wait,—their memories
 Of last year's April had deceived them so.

"From 'neath a sheltering pine some tender buds
 Looked out, and saw the hollows filled with snow;
—On such a frozen world they closed their eyes;
 When spring is cold, how can the blossoms blow?"

She watched the homeless birds, the slow, sad spring,
 The barren fields, and shivering, naked trees:
"Thus God has dealt with me, his child," she said,—
 "I wait my spring-time, and am cold like these.

"To them will come the fulness of their time;
 Their spring, though late, will make the meadows fair
Shall I, who wait like them, like them be blessed?
 I am His own,—doth not my Father care?"