CHILDREN OF THE SPRING
What means the Spring to you?—
The tree, the bloom, the grass;
Wide fields to wander through;
A primrose path to pass;
Bright sun, and skies of blue;
The songs of singing streams;
The rippling riverside
Awakening from dreams;
Fair-browed and azure-eyed—
Oh, thus the Springtime seems.
Yet not for such as you
She comes with song and voice,
’Tis not for such as you
She makes the heart rejoice,
She comes with skies of blue.
Spring’s children are the ill—
’Tis these she comes to cheer;
Upon the window-sill,
Within the chamber drear,
She sits her song to trill.
On narrow cots they lie
Within the quiet room,
Their sky a square of sky
Cut from the inner gloom,
From dreary walls and high.
Spring means so much to these,
The prisoners abed!—
The perfume of the breeze,
The birdsong overhead,
The echoed melodies.
The window open wide—
Behold, the Spring is here!
No more the countryside
Is dim and dark and drear;
Now stronger runs the tide.
The pale and patient wife,
Her babe upon her breast,
Forgets the night, the knife,
And sleeps the sleep of rest,
Awakening to life.
The old, the very old,
Behold in budding Spring
Another year unfold—
And life, a tinsel thing,
Is turned again to gold.
And e’en the empty cot,
Whose Spring has come too late,
The one who now is not,
The one who could not wait,
The Spring has not forgot.
For, see! the Springtime stands
Our drooping eyes to raise
To fair and shining strands;
The Springtime comes and lays
A lily in his hands.