Classic Poem

I

Flower before the leaf, boy-loved Rhodora,
Morning-pink along the valley of the birch and maple;
Now the green begins to cling about the silver birches;
Burst the maples; reddens yonder hillside;
Sudden as the babbling brook or robin's whistle,
Spring-swift, thou art come in the old places,
In the hollow swamp-land, bloom on brake!

Flower before the leaf!
Ah, once here in the sweet season —
Flash of blue wings, birds in chorus,
Ere the violet, ere the wild-rose,
While the linden lingered and the elm tree —
Years ago a boy's heart broke in blossom,
Flower before the leaf,
While he wandered down the valley loving you;
And above him, and around him,
Beam and gleam and distant color,
Waiting, waiting, hung the Spirit
To rush forth upon the world.

II

S OMEWHERE in the years of the dawn did I dream that a youth all boy-like stands? —
And the tender Rhodora's bloom, the first of the year, is red in his pure, sweet hands;
And in the doorway bending, dark-haired, bright-cheeked, a girlish form appears —
A word, a smile, a blush, and out of the blue a black bird downward steers —
And all the spirits rush to his heart, and the fragrant world, save her, turns dim,
The flowering of whose face was the glory of spring through the years of the dawn to him!