Well, here you are at last, dear! _Are_ the biting blizzards past, dear? And _will_ you guarantee us from subjection to the plumber? Will no casual icy splinter from the serried spears of Winter Put a chill upon your smile, and spoil the promise of the Summer? We've been waiting worn and weary, till e'en cuckoo-songs sound cheery, And belated almond-blossoms show like roses of Cashmere: And the cockney chaunt now flowing, "All-a-blowing _and_ a-growing!" Falls far sweeter than MASCAGNI upon London's longing ear. Where on earth have you been hiding? We are in no mood for chiding, But mid-April's _rather_ late, dear, for what should have come in March! What malignant hocus-pocus has kept back the plucky crocus, Whose gold is scarce yet bursting from the beds the winds still parch? After that six weeks cold snap, dear, of fast frozen pipe and tap, dear, When back to barbarism and to bathlessness fate drove us, And we sicklier grew, and surlier, if you'd come a _leetle_ earlier,-- Well, let bygones now be bygones! But O Spring sweet! an you love us, Come--at last, dear--_à la_ HERRICK, with such influence atmospheric As will slay the Influenza; with such fragrance from your flowers, As will knock Malaria silly; let your dear daffydown-dilly From our bodies drive bacilli, and the blight from out our bowers. Slay our Microbes, Spring, and bless us! Like a clinging Shirt of Nessus Morbid sickliness surrounds us in our lives, our books, our art. Oh, if sunshine and your breezes might but slay our soul-diseases, Oust the pestilent miasma that pervades the home, the mart; Neutralise the nauseous virus whose developments so tire us; Disinfect the New Parnassus, purge the New Pierian Spring, Bring us honesty and health, dear, why for all our wit and wealth, dear, We might love like Nature's lovers, and like Nature's poets sing. Ah! we need Spring's prophylactic!--But I'm getting too didactic For a sunny April morning, and a sweet young thing like you. My dear, the London Season, wrapped and furred out of all reason, Has been waiting, decked like Winter, with a nose-tip nearly blue; Waiting, waiting for your coming. Sweet as bees in clover humming Is the first sound of your footfall. Most spontaneous of passions Is the love for you, you darling. You will bring the thrush and starling, And the young leaves and the young lambs, and, what's better-- _the Spring Fashions_!!! So no wonder that she greets you with effusion when she meets you. Ah, Spring! 'tis not your lilacs, and your daffodils and stocks, Or the tender leaves the trees on, that most moves Miss London Season, 'Tis the hope of "rippin'" frolics and the thought of "trotty" frocks. But an old man's heart, my treasure, beats to quite another measure, Still my sympathies, dear Spring, are with the youngsters and with you.