“I JOURNEYED SOUTH TO MEET THE SPRING”

I JOURNEYED South to meet the Spring

To feel the soft tide’s gentle rise

That to my heart again should bring,

Foretold by many a whispering wing,

The old, the new, the sweet surprise.

For once, the wonder was not new—

And yet it wore a newer grace:

For all its innocence of hue,

Its warmth and bloom and dream and dew,

I had but left—in Helen’s face.

Robert Underwood Johnson.