Beyond the village churchyard, still and calm, Steeped in the sweetness of eternal morn, The wall runs down in crumbling cadence Beside the brook which plays Through the land like a silver harp. A wind of ancient romance blows across the field, A sweet disturbance thrills the air; The silken skirts of Spring go rustling by, And the earth is astir with joy. Up the hill, romping and shaking their golden heads, Come the little children of the wood. From ecstasy to ecstasy the year mounts upward. Up from the south come the odor-laden winds, Angels and ministers of life, Dropping seeds of fruitfulness Into the bosoms of flowers. Elusive, alluring secrets hide in wood and hedge Like the first thoughts of love In the breast of a maiden; The witchery of love is in rock and tree. Across the pasture, star-sown with daisies, I see a young girl--the spirit of spring she seems, Sister of the winds that run through the rippling daisies. Sweet and clear her voice calls father and brother, And one whose name her shy lips will not utter. But a chorus of leaves and grasses speaks her heart And tells his name: the birches flutter by the wall; The wild cherry-tree shakes its plumy head And whispers his name; the maple Opens its rosy lips and murmurs his name; The marsh-marigold sends the rumor Down the winding stream, and the blue flag Spread the gossip to the lilies in the lake: All Nature’s eyes and tongues conspire In the unfolding of the tale That Adam and Eve beneath the blossoming rose-tree Told each other in the Garden of Eden. Once more the wind blows from the walls, And I behold a fair young mother; She stands at the lilac-shaded door With her baby at her breast; She looks across the twilit fields and smiles And whispers to her child: “Thy father comes!” Life triumphed over many-weaponed Death. Sorrow and toil and the wilderness thwarted their stout invasion; But with the ship that sailed again went no retreating soul! Stubborn, unvanquished, clinging to the skirts of Hope, They kept their narrow foothold on the land, And the ship sailed home for more. With yearlong striving they fought their way into the forest; Their axes echoed where I sit, a score of miles from the sea. Slowly, slowly the wilderness yielded To smiling grass-plots and clearings of yellow corn; And while the logs of their cabins were still moist With odorous sap, they set upon the hill The shrine of liberty for man’s mind, And by it the shrine of liberty for man’s soul, The school-house and the church.