I

The world to-day is a nun in gray,
And the wind is her wailing prayer
To God, to give her a soul like May,
Flower-sweet, white, and fair.

II

Still as a lake at even is the air;
The heavens are hid; I mark not anywhere
A hopeful sign hung out by plain or hill;
Only the etched brown trees and barren fields are there.

How like a madman's dream the thought of June!
Shall this warped pipe e'er swell with some soft tune
That calls for liquid stops and languorous skill,
The piper lying prone beneath a summer moon?

III

The mystery
And magic of the spring!
It seizes on this bleak and sullen thing
Called March, and see!
Bland skies, faint odors as of slumbering flowers,
Faint bird-songs in the bowers,
A soft south wind, and, cradled in the wood,
As sweet as womanhood,
As shy as any maiden lured by love,
The dimly flushed arbutus bloom above
The harsh earth soon will peer,
And April airs be here!