O

AN APRIL MORNING

NCE more in misted April
The world is growing green.
Along the winding river
The plumey willows lean.

Beyond the sweeping meadows
The looming mountains rise,
Like battlements of dreamland
Against the brooding skies.

In every wooded valley

The buds are breaking through,
As though the heart of all things
No languor ever knew.

The golden-wings and bluebirds
Call to their heavenly choirs.
The pines are blued and drifted
With smoke of brushwood fires.

And in my sister's garden
Where little breezes run,

The golden daffodillies

Are blowing in the sun.

BLISS CARMAN

TO DAFFODILS

AIR daffodils, we weep to see

FA

You haste away so soon;

As yet the early rising sun

Has not attain'd his noon.

Stay, stay,

Until the hasting day

Has run

But to the evensong;

And, having pray'd together, we

Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you

We have as short a spring;

As quick a growth to meet decay,

As you, or anything.

Like to the summer's rain;

Or as the pearls of morning's dew,

Ne'er to be found again.

ROBERT HERRICK

A CATCH FOR SPRING

OW has the blue-eyed Spring

Sped dancing through the plain.

Girls weave a daisy chain;

Boys race beside the sedge;
Dust fills the blinding lane;
May lies upon the hedge;

All creatures love the Spring!

The clouds laugh on, and would
Dance with us if they could;
The larks ascend and shrill;
A woodpecker fills the wood;
Jays laugh crossing the hill;

All creatures love the Spring!

The lithe cloud-shadows chase
Over the whole earth's face,
And where winds ruffling veer
O'er wooded streams' dark ways
Mad fish unscudding steer;

All creatures love the Spring!

Run, girls, to drink thick cream!
Race, boys, to where the stream
Winds through a rumbling pool,
And your bright bodies fling
Into the foaming cool!
For we'll enjoy our Spring!

ROBERT NICHOLS