A SPRING JOURNEY
We journeyed through broad woodland ways,
My Love and I.
The maples set the shining fields ablaze.
The blue May sky
Brought to us its great Spring surprise;
While we saw all things through each other's eyes.
And sometimes from a steep hillside
Shone fair and bright
The shadhush, like a young June bride,
Fresh clothed in white.
Sometimes came glimpses glad of the blue sea;
But I smiled only on my Love; he smiled on me.
The violets made a field one mass of blue—
Even bluer than the sky;
The little brook took on that color too,
And sang more merrily.
"Your dress is blue," he laughing said. "Your eyes,"
My heart sang, "sweeter than the bending skies."
We spoke of poets dead so long ago,
And their wise words;
We glanced at apple-trees, like drifted snow;
We watched the nesting birds,—
Only a moment! Ah, how short the day!
Yet all the winters cannot blow its sweetness quite away.
Alice Freeman Palmer [1855-1902]