Classic Poem

Once more the changing seasons bring
The lovely miracle of spring:
The streams their cheery songs renew,
The skies take on a deeper blue;
A spicy scent the air pervades,
From blossoming boughs and ferny glades;
The sweet days lengthen unaware,
The shortened nights grow warm and fair;
The woods their robe of russet brown
Take off, and don a gayer gown;
The fields, to be as fine as they,
Set all their subtle looms at play,
And weave, unceasing, though unseen,
Their great rich carpets, broad and green,—
Designing deftly, here and there,
Flower-patterns, pale, but passing fair,
Counting on June's delicious skies
To warm them into deeper dyes;
Blithe robins pour delirious notes
Of welcome from their crimson throats;
The bluebird scarce can build his nest
For the deep rapture at his breast,
And pauses in his work, to sing
This lovely miracle of spring.

Oh, meet it is, dear friends, that we
Should join this jocund company;
And—though we cannot quite be gay—
Put on our singing robes to-day:
Sing of the spirit's light and bloom,
Sing how the Power that bursts the tomb
Of nature, keepeth watch above
The sepulchre of those we love.
For they are risen; they are not here:
These graves, with each returning year,
Ye deck with flowers,—but where are they
Whose souls once habited the clay
That sleeps beneath? Thou knowest where,
Dear Lord; thou hast them still in care:
The sparrow shall not fall without
Our Father, and we will not doubt.
Yet still we love, as spring returns,
To gather round these sacred urns;
To come with brimful hands, and pour,
From Nature's fast reviving store
Of bud and bloom, our grateful gift,—
White lilies, and the pink-white drift
Of apple-blossoms, purple plumes
Of lilacs, sweet syringa blooms;
Gay crocus-flowers and daffodils,
And columbines from breezy hills:
Searching the wood for flowery signs,
We rifle it of half its vines,
Pluck sweet arbutus, nor forget,
Withal, the blue-eyed violet.
No flower too lowly, none too rare
For tribute; love delights to spare,—
Counting its costliest service small
To theirs who, dying, gave up all!
O, if there be, above the rest,
One spot by grateful footsteps pressed,
One place where love and light and bloom
Should rise triumphant over gloom
And doubt and hate, 't is where they lie
Who dared, for duty's sake to die!
Let nothing dark nor fearsome tread
These haunts of our heroic dead,
But light and joy and peace instead.
Thrice hallowed spot! There let the spring
Bestow its earliest blossoming;
There let the singing robins come,
And sparrows chirp, and insects hum;
And squirrels from the nutty wood
People the peaceful solitude,
And crickets sing among the grass,
And troops of happy children pass:
There friendships go, to plant the spot
With heart's-ease and forget-me-not;
And new-made lovers, passion-mad,
Frequent the place and make it glad
With shy half-glances as they walk,
Sweet nothings and bewildered talk;
And mother lead her little child,
In search of blossoms, nature-wild;
And all sweet care of man and God
Plant flowers above the hallowed sod.

Yet one more word,—heaven speed the day
When wars from earth shall pass away,
When principles more dear than life
Shall triumph—but through love, not strife,
And men shall own another might
Than bloodshed, in defence of right:
A day more hallowed even than this,—
When righteousness and peace shall kiss;
And, in her quiet citadel,
Mercy with truth delight to dwell;
When, in our Rama-homes, no sound
Of lamentation shall be found,
Henceforth, above our slaughtered ones,—
Sad Rachels weeping for their sons,—
But, in the stead thereof, shall rise,
Reëchoing to the farthest skies,
Hosannas over war's surecase,
Praises for love's divine increase,
And pæans in the name of peace!