There sudden dawned a dewy morn;
A man was turning up the mould;
And in our hearts the spring was born,
Crept thither through the cold.
And Spring, in after years of youth,
Became the form of every form
For hearts now bursting into truth,
Now sighing in the storm.
On with the glad year let me go,
With troops of daisies round my feet;
Flying my kite, or, in the glow
Of arching summer heat,
Outstretched in fear upon a bank,
Lest, gazing up on awful space,
I should fall down into the blank,
From off the round world's face.
And let my brothers come with me
To play our old games yet again,
Children on earth, more full of glee
That we in heaven are men.
If then should come the shadowy death,
Take one of us and go,
We left would say, under our breath,
"It is a dream, you know!"
"And in the dream our brother's gone
Upstairs: he heard our father call;
For one by one we go alone,
Till he has gathered all."
Father, in joy our knees we bow:
This earth is not a place of tombs:
We are but in the nursery now;
They in the upper rooms.
For are we not at home in thee,
And all this world a visioned show;
That, knowing what Abroad is, we
What Home is too may know?
And at thy feet I sit, O Lord,
As once of old, in moonlight pale,
I at my father's sat, and heard
Him read a lofty tale.