spring

Sweet Stay-at-Home, sweet Well-content,
Thou knowest of no strange continent;
Thou hast not felt thy bosom keep
A gentle motion with the deep;
Thou hast not sailed in Indian seas,
Where scent comes forth in every breeze.
Thou hast not seen the rich grape grow
For miles, as far as eyes can go:
Thou hast not seen a summer's night
When maids could sew by a worm's light;
Nor the North Sea in spring send out
Bright hues that like birds flit about
In solid cages of white ice --

ART thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
   O sweet content!
Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplex'd?
   O punishment!
Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vex'd
To add to golden numbers golden numbers?
   O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labour bears a lovely face;
Then hey nonny nonny--hey nonny nonny!

Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring?
   O sweet content!
Swim'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears?

1 Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king,
2 Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
3 Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing:
4 Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

5 The palm and may make country houses gay,
6 Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
7 And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay:
8 Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

9 The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,

The meadow lark’s trill and the brown thrush’s whistle
From morning to evening fill all the sweet air,
And my heart is as light as the down of a thistle –
The world is so bright and the earth is so fair.
There is life in the wood, there is bloom on the meadow;
The air drops with songs that the merry birds sing.
The sunshine has won, in the battle with shadow,
And she’s dressed the glad earth with robes of the spring.

The bee leaves his hive for the field of red clover

Phoebus, arise!
And paint the sable skies
With azure, white, and red:
Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's bed
That she may thy career with roses spread:
The nightingales thy coming each-where sing:
Make an eternal spring!
Give life to this dark world which lieth dead;
Spread forth thy golden hair
In larger locks than thou wast wont before,
And emperor-like decore
With diadem of pearl thy temples fair:
Chase hence the ugly night
Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light.

And sleeps thy heart when flower and tree
Adorn the summer stillness?
And did young Spring pass over thee
In chillness?

Their scent delights and pleases,
On petalled breezes blown,
But in their beauty freezes
Thine own.

The flower awakes, the tree is leafed,
Yet love in thee is dumb,—
Flowers fall, fruits ripen, corn is sheafed,
Ho! Winter’s cold will come.

When wakens some November morn
Dew-soft, around thee brightly,

Oh ye, all ye, who suffer here below,
Schooled in the baffling mystery of pain,
Who on life's anvil bear the fateful strain,
Wrong as forged iron, hammered blow on blow.
Take counsel with your grief, in that you know,
That he who suffers suffers not in vain,
Nay, that it shall be for the whole world's gain,
And wisdom prove the priceless price of woe.

Thus in some new-found land where no man's feet
Have trod a path, bold voyagers astray,
May fall foredone by torturing thirst and heat:

My father's head has become a mystery to him.
We finally have something in common.
When he moves his head his eyes
get big as roses filled
with the commotion of spring.
Not long ago he was a man
who had tomato soup for lunch
and dusted with the earnestness
of a gun fight. Now he's a man
who sits at the table trying to breathe
in tiny bites. When they told him
his spinal column is closing, I thought
of all the branches he's cut
with loppers and piled and burned

FLY, dearest, fly! He is not nigh!

He who found thee one fair morn in Spring

In the wood where thou thy flight didst wing.
Fly, dearest, fly! He is not nigh!
Never rests the foot of evil spy.

Hark! flutes' sweet strains and love's refrains

Reach the loved one, borne there by the wind,

In the soft heart open doors they find.
Hark! flutes' sweet strains and love's refrains,
Hark!--yet blissful love their echo pains.

Erect his head, and firm his tread,

“What do you think
The bravest drink
Under the sky?”
“Strong beer,” said I.

“There’s a place for everything,
Everything, anything,
There’s a place for everything
Where it ought to be:
For a chicken, the hen’s wing;
For poison, the bee’s sting;
For almond-blossom, Spring;
A beerhouse for me.”

“There’s a prize for every one
Every one, any one,
There’s a prize for every one,
Whoever he may be:
Crags for the mountaineer,
Flags for the Fusilier,