APRIL DESIRE.
WHILE in these spacious fields is my sojourn,
Needs must I bless the blossomy outbreak
Of earth’s pent beauty, and for old love’s sake
Trembling, the bees’ on-coming chant discern;
Hail the rash hyacinth, the ambushed fern,
High-bannered boughs that green defiance make,
And watch from sheathing ice the brave Spring take
Her broad, bright river-blade. Ah! then, in turn
Long-hushèd forces stir in me; I feel
All the most sharp unrest of the young year;
Fain would my spirit, too, like idling steel
Be snatched from its dull scabbard, for a strife
With cold oppressions! straightway, if not here,
In consummated freedom, ampler life.
TWOFOLD SERVICE.
CHAMPIONS of men with brawny fist and lung,
You righteous! with eyes oped and utterance terse,
Whose greed of energies would fain disperse
Ere any mould be cast, or roundel sung,
Your gentler brothers still at play among
The smirch and jangle of the universe,
Mere fool-blind trespassers for you to curse,
The Sabbath-breakers, the unchristened young;—
Peace! These, too, know: these are as ye employed,
Nor of laborious help and value void,
Living; who, faithful to their fellows’ need,
Fling life away for truth, art, fatherland,
Like a gold largess from a princely hand,
Without one trading thought of heavenly meed.