Classic Poem

Leap to the highest height of spring,
And trill thy sweetest note,
Bird of the heavenly plumes and twinkling wing
And silver-tonid throat!

Sing, while the maple's deepest root
Thrills with a pulse of fire
That lights its buds. Blow, blow thy tender flute,
Thy reed of rich desire!

Breathe in thy syrinx Freedom's breath,
Quaver the fresh and true,
Dispel this lingering wintry mist of death
And charm the world anew!

Thou first sky-dipped spring-bud of song,
Whose heavenly ecstasy
Far in the night,
When the moon sails high and white,
In the rich, dark urmament,
And the sea-wind is spent,
And the magnolia's heavy flowers are hung,
Like ghastly death-bells waiting to be rung,
I yearn
In a low, many-toned, deep, sweet nocturne,
To guess,
And so express,
The lost notes that, once stricken from thy lyre,
Touched all the world with fiery tenderness,
And filled the air with veins of tender fire;
But of my longing cometh unto me
Never the bubbling honey, nor the honey-bee!

Nay,
Never tongue may say
What founts of inspiration and delight
Forsook the day, what stars shrank from the night,
When all thy songs,
Torn into shreds and smirched with foulest wrongs.
Were scattered,
Battered,
Bruised, and so left to lie
In places lone and high,
Dark petals of a hyacinth, odorous still,
Crushed by rude feet on many a windy hill!
Foretells the May while yet March winds are strong,
Fresh faith appears with thee!

How sweet, how magically rich,
Through filmy splendor blown,
Thy hopeful voice set to the promise-pitch
Of melody yet unknown!

O land of mine (where hope can grow
And send a deeper root
With every spring), hear, heed the free bird blow
Hope's charmid flute!

Ah! who will hear, and who will care,
And who will heed thy song,
As prophecy, as hope as promise rare,
Budding to bloom ere long?

From swelling bulbs and sprouting seed,
Sweet sap and fragrant dew,
And human hearts, grown doubly warm at need,
Leaps answer strong and true:

We see, we hear (thou liberty-loving thing,
That down spring winds doth float),
The promise of thine empyrean wing,
The hope that floods thy throat!