'Tis spring, when all things sing;
Only I am dumb, wanting nothing these bright days can bring.
Yet you ask why,
As if you did not know that songs are wrung
From misery and yearning and regret;
While I, dear heart, have I not everything?

When you are gone, ah, then I'll sing to thee
As plaintively
As rainbirds in the rain-grey solitude
Or whip-poor-wills at dusk along the wood,
To bring thee back again
To these brown arms and this star-silent heart
Where you have lain.

When I am searching through the drift of years
The old, familiar flower-haunted ground,
Then I shall sing a song so much like tears
That all the wooded hills will sob with sound.
Will you be glad, I wonder, when I sing
With breaking heart the ecstasy of spring!