Classic Poem

I ASK you not, frail crocuses, that set
Light wings and thin
Alert to air still sharp with winter fret,
Bestow your innocence for coronet
Of me, stuck deep in sin;
Yet suffer me to win
So much of outlook sober and demure
As yours, and pure,
That with your flush my spring-time may begin

Whether upon the grass kirtled in white
(Snow drifted thither),
Or one by one, yet lingering and slight,
Your little fires broider a linked light,
And beacon in black weather
The way for men, or whether,
More violet than heart of amethyst,
You kneel at rest
In folded peace, as nuns that pray together;

Let my upspringing be as glacial-clean,
And let me stand
Rejoicing in the sun-washt deep demesne
With you and all young flowers fresh and keen
As new rain on the land;
With you to lift up hand
Shrilling my orison at break of day,
Then bowing, say —
" We come and go, live, die, at God's command."

Yours are mute raptures, silent ecstasies,
The secret song
Of carven angel-brood whose litanies
Peal from wide-open eyes, and like lilies
Are blown in a throng
By hidden wind and strong
About the fenced garden, where the Maid
And Mother, having laid
To sleep her firstling, crooneth all day long

O glad your coming, and your service glad,
Sweet-breathed things;
You look not to the prison once you had,
Take no thought wherewithal you shall be clad;
You have no sorrowings,
Nor rankle of coward-stings;
But spearing ever upwards in your flight
You strain to light,
Then listen clear-eyed till the chant begins.
If there is any music left in us,
Or any mirth
Whose song may well from hearts made bounteous
As flows your still delight when, emulous,
Spring leaps from Winter's dearth,
Let such an equal worth
Of quiet-hued deliciousness be ours
That with your patient flowers
We fold on singing-robes to praise this goodly earth.