At sunset all the garden swoons with bells,
Rolling across the sea and fells.
The demon sound stumbles along the ground.
Withering for miles around
And then is still—
All but one bell that dins on from the hill,
That strikes to ten,
While all the peasants pray
And cross themselves and say,
"Christ pity us!
It is the mad king's angelus,
Amen."
Spring's Pilgrimage.
When Spring is born of Winter
Then there comes a day
In early April with the warmth of May,
The clouds go gadding and the winds turn mild,
And Spring is born in sunlight,
Merry child!
Her nurse is April with the misty eyes;
The birds sing round her cradle
Where she lies
In green-streaked woodlands by the mantled ponds,
Where the young ferns unfurl their snaky fronds.
She comes up from the South
With a bird whistle on her pouting mouth,
And sits upon some hill
Her mother, Winter, has kept cold and still,
Till her Sun-lover melts the snow—
Then out the strong floods go.
Leaping like horses to the sea,
And the green frogs go mad with glee.
Ah! When that child is on her way
The trees make ready, in the North
The robins herald her
And the buds put forth.
Puss Willow's little catkins are a-stir,
And it is all, is all for her!
But for a little while
She lingers in the South.
Wandering the moss-draped aisle,
Brushing the shiest flowers with her mouth.
Tuning her swanny throat
To the lush warble of the swamp-bird's note,
Beneath the lamp-hung jasmine's vine tent
Her warm, delicious childhood soon is spent.
Then forth she fares,
About the middle of the month of May,
A young girl, wild-eyed, gay;
The mountains are her stairs,
The birds her harbingers,
With merry song
The peewit pipes her as she trips along—
The trumpet flowers blow fanfares.
Even the sea caves know her
And deep down
The mermen chime the bells
In some dim town,
Where wrecks lie rotten and forgotten;
The shark's fin glides
More avidly among the sea-isle tides—
The whole glad earth
Hails her with gales of mirth.
The frantic midges dance;
There is tumultuous lowing from the cattle.
When Spring fares northward from the South,
The young sun hungers for her cherry mouth
And the black stallions scream as if in battle.
Summer.
Now come the Dog Days
When the fat-faced sun
Like Falstaff pours hot jest
On Prince and thieves;
The earth at morning smokes
And at high noon
Straight downward point the listless hanging leaves.
Come, love, come, come away with me,
Beneath the arbor tree,
Where is sweet greenery and shade within;
Shall we not take our ease in love's own inn?