For my soul is held in silence, A rapture, great and dumb,-- For the mystery that lingered, The glory that is come! 1861. IN EARLIEST SPRING. Tossing his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles, Lion-like, March cometh in, hoarse, with tempestuous breath, Through all the moaning chimneys, and thwart all the hollows and angles Round the shuddering house, threating of winter and death. But in my heart I feel the life of the wood and the meadow Thrilling the pulses that own kindred with fibres that lift Bud and blade to the sunward, within the inscrutable shadow, Deep in the oak's chill core, under the gathering drift. Nay, to earth's life in mine some prescience, or dream, or desire (How shall I name it aright?) comes for a moment and goes,-- Rapture of life ineffable, perfect,--as if in the brier, Leafless there by my door, trembled a sense of the rose. THE BOBOLINKS ARE SINGING. Out of its fragrant heart of bloom,-- The bobolinks are singing! Out of its fragrant heart of bloom The apple-tree whispers to the room, "Why art thou but a nest of gloom, While the bobolinks are singing?" The two wan ghosts of the chamber there,-- The bobolinks are singing! The two wan ghosts of the chamber there Cease in the breath of the honeyed air, Sweep from the room and leave it bare, While the bobolinks are singing. Then with a breath so chill and slow,-- The bobolinks are singing! Then with a breath so chill and slow, It freezes the blossoms into snow, The haunted room makes answer low, While the bobolinks are singing. "I know that in the meadow-land,-- The bobolinks are singing! I know that in the meadow-land The sorrowful, slender elm-trees stand, And the brook goes by on the other hand, While the bobolinks are singing. "But ever I see, in the brawling stream,-- The bobolinks are singing! But ever I see in the brawling stream A maiden drowned and floating dim, Under the water, like a dream, While the bobolinks are singing. "Buried, she lies in the meadow-land!-- The bobolinks are singing! Buried, she lies in the meadow-land, Under the sorrowful elms where they stand. Wind, blow over her soft and bland, While the bobolinks are singing. "O blow, but stir not the ghastly thing,-- The bobolinks are singing! O blow, but stir not the ghastly thing The farmer saw so heavily swing From the elm, one merry morn of spring, While the bobolinks were singing. "O blow, and blow away the bloom,-- The bobolinks are singing! O blow, and blow away the bloom That sickens me in my heart of gloom, That sweetly sickens the haunted room, While the bobolinks are singing!" PRELUDE. (TO AN EARLY BOOK OF VERSE.) In March the earliest bluebird came And caroled from the orchard-tree His little tremulous songs to me, And called upon the summer's name,