A LATER SPRING
A flash of indigo in the air,
A streak of orange edged with black!
A bluebird skimmed the spruces there,
A redstart followed in his track.
The light grows in the eastern skies,
The deeper shadows are withdrawn;
From marsh and swamp the vapors rise
In the cool cloisters of the dawn.
What loom, a-weaving on the land,
Such color and fragrance fuses!
Magenta and white on moss and sand,
Azaleas, arethusas.
And higher up along the steeps,
The pink of mountain-laurel;
While lower down the yellow creeps
From celandine and sorrel.
Sea-foam or snow-drift, flecked with spurt
Of flame, upon the grasses spread.
The snow is foam of mitre-wort;
The flame, the ragged robin's red.
..............
Where sits the lily of the morning dew
When light winds waken,
And gems that the violets hold
Gently are shaken
To crystalline purple and blue,
And emerald, crimson and gold
From the heart of the rose unfold,
And burst into view;
There, at the dawn's first blush,
The notes of a brown thrasher fall,
And the importunate voice of the thrush
Blends with a tannager's call;
There, under a dragon-fly's wings,
A stream carols by with sweet noise,
And slowly a daffodil swings
To a humming-bird's marvellous poise.
(Thaddeus, walking through a field in the direction of Julian's home. The day is warm and sunny. A rapid stream, a short distance away, flows through a valley whose banks slope down from small hills covered with evergreen. Afar off, the land is high and forest-clad. At a bend of the stream he suddenly meets Julian.)