Classic Poem

FOR EMILY STEVENS

I

I T was that time of year when green things grow
As if by grace, all over the jubilant earth;
That time of budding tree, ascending grass
And fragrant lanes when hawthorn-blossoms break,
And orchards first put on their delicate tints.
April! Another April over the land,
With soft rains summoning the laggard troups
Of hyacinths and early primroses.
April! with birds that call from blowing branches
The news that heaven has kissed the dreaming earth,
And roused to sudden rapture beauty that slept.
How diligent the army of the flowers!
In beautiful battalions, lo! I saw
Their ranks of colored uniforms appear
And march in splendor down the singing hills.

II

Now who could weary of the budding boughs,
Though thrice ten million stretched their flowery arms,
As if to bless the earth?
There was in heaven
An angel who leaned down when Spring had come,
As if to drink the perfume of the world
In one long draught, so eager was his soul
For the old wonder that he knew when life
Upon the hills was one long cry of youth.
The streets of jasper and of fabled pearl,
High golden gates and fields of asphodel
Were wearisome to him. The storied towers
Filled him with languor. " Lord, I crave the Spring —
The earthly Spring that wakens now below,
And I would fare to woods grown green again,
To river-brinks where mosses kiss the water,
And shy birds call when sap begins to run.
I hunger for the lost delight that poured
In sunlight on one dear-remembered hill.
I pine for the scent of lilacs wet with rain;
Oh, I am homesick for the fragrant earth! "

III

Then God released him from the shining streets,
And straightway down the stairways of the sun
This anxious spirit fled, and softly reached,
(Unknown to man), the meadows of the world.
He took bright highways when the cup of noon
Was overflowing with pale loveliness;
And when the slow, still mornings, white with peace,
Made the heart ache that such a time could be,
This angel moved, unseen, by orchard walls,
And leaned to watch the grass break through the ground.
He sped through gardens when the moonlight drenched
The earliest buds with clean cascades of beauty;
And when the April stars hung in the sky,
He was a ghost that sighed with joy, being home
After so long a pilgrimage in heaven.

IV

We wondered why the Spring was doubly dear
On certain days and nights. We did not know
That one from all the sources of high things
Had breathed a special blessing on the grass,
And touched each flower before it opened wide —
A truant angel, whose great wings had brushed
The emerald hills, and, happy, disappeared!