The green Spring tide has risen, until its crest
Fragrant with cowslips, flecked with tiny spray
Of small white daisies, laps the warm Earth's breast
And ripples on the hedge-reefs of the may.

Across the wood the mournful cuckoo cries;
Across the downs, the sheep slow-moving pass;
The skylark flutters, singing, from the skies
To drop in sudden silence in the grass.

I hear the robin piping in the hedge—
The murmur of the drowsy wakening bee—
The song of winds, low-fluting in the sedge,
That blends with organ pedals of the sea.

Oh, land enriched with life-blood and with tears
Of people after people, churl and king!
The haunting stories of a thousand years
Waken to fragrance in the English Spring!