In this May-month, by grace of heaven, things shoot apace. The waiting multitude of fair boughs in the wood, How few days have arrayed their beauty in green shade. What have I seen or heard? it was the yellow bird Sang in the tree: he flew a flame against the blue; Upward he flashed. Again, hark! 'tis his heavenly strain. Another! Hush! Behold, many, like boats of gold, From waving branch to branch their airy bodies launch. What music is like this, where each note is a kiss? The golden willows lift their boughs the sun to sift: Their sprays they droop to screen the sky with veils of green, A floating cage of song, where feathered lovers throng. How the delicious notes come bubbling from their throats! Full and sweet how they are shed like round pearls from a thread! The motions of their flight are wishes of delight. Hearing their song I trace the secret of their grace. Ah, could I this fair time so fashion into rhyme, The poem that I sing would be the voice of spring. 9 JANUARY Cold is the winter day, misty and dark: The sunless sky with faded gleams is rent: And patches of thin snow outlying, mark The landscape with a drear disfigurement. The trees their mournful branches lift aloft: The oak with knotty twigs is full of trust, With bud-thronged bough the cherry in the croft; The chestnut holds her gluey knops upthrust. No birds sing, but the starling chaps his bill And chatters mockingly; the newborn lambs Within their strawbuilt fold beneath the hill Answer with plaintive cry their bleating dams. Their voices melt in welcome dreams of spring, Green grass and leafy trees and sunny skies: My fancy decks the woods, the thrushes sing, Meadows are gay, bees hum and scents arise. And God the Maker doth my heart grow bold To praise for wintry works not understood, Who all the worlds and ages doth behold, Evil and good as one, and all as good. 10 A ROBIN Flame-throated robin on the topmost bough Of the leafless oak, what singest thou? Hark! he telleth how-- 'Spring is coming now; Spring is coming now. Now ruddy are the elm-tops against the blue sky, The pale larch donneth her jewelry; Red fir and black fir sigh, And I am lamenting the year gone by. The bushes where I nested are all cut down, They are felling the tall trees one by one, And my mate is dead and gone, In the winter she died and left me lone. She lay in the thicket where I fear to go; For when the March-winds after the snow The leaves away did blow, She was not there, and my heart is woe: