Come, let us forth, my heart, where none divines!
Into far woodland places,
Where we may meet the fair assembled races,
Beneath the guardian pines,
Of May’s first flowers.... Poppy-celandines,
And starry trilliums, bugled columbines,
With which her hair, her radiant hair she twines,
And loops and laces.—
Come, let us forth, my heart, where none divines!
Forth, forth, my heart, and let us find our dreams,
There, where they haunt each hollow!
Dreams luring us with oread feet to follow,
With flying feet of beams,
Fleeter and lighter than the fleetest swallow:
Dreams, holding us with dryad glooms and gleams,
With Naiad eyes, far stiller than still streams,
That have beheld and still reflect, it seems,
The god Apollo.—
Forth, forth, my heart, and let us find our dreams!
Out, out, my heart, the world is white with spring.
Long have our dreams been pleaders:
Now let them be our firm but gentle leaders.
Come, let us forth and sing
Among the amber-emerald-tufted cedars,
And balm-o’-Gileads, cotton-woods, a-swing
Like giant censers, that, from leaf-cusps fling
Balsams of gummy gold, bewildering
The winds their feeders.
Out, out, my heart, the world is white with spring.
Up, up, my heart, and all thy hope put on.
Array thyself in splendor.
Like some bright dragon-fly, some May-fly slender,
The irised lamels don
Of thy new armor; and, where burns the centre,
Refulgent, of the opening rose of dawn,
Spread thy wild wings, and, ere the hour be gone,
Bright as a blast from some bold clarion,
Thy Dream-world enter.—
Up, up, my heart, and all thy hope put on.
IV
And then I heard it singing,
The wind that touched my hair,
A song of wild expression,
A song that called in session
The wild-flowers sweetly swinging,
The wild-flowers lightly flinging
Their tresses to the air.
And first, beneath a bramble arch,
The bloodroot rose; each bloom a torch
Of hollow snow, within which, bright,
The calyx grottoed golden light.
Hepatica and bluet,
And gold corydalis,
Arose as to an aria;
Then wild-phlox and dentaria,
In rapture, ere they knew it,
Trooped forward, nodding to it,
Faint as a first star is.
And then a music,—to the ear
Inaudible,—I seemed to hear;
A symphony that seemed to rise
And speak in colors to the eyes.
I saw the Jacob’s-ladder
Ring violet peal on peal
Of perfume, azure-swinging;
The bluebell slimly ringing
Its purple chimes; and, gladder,
Green note on note, the madder
Bells of the Solomon’s-seal.
Now very near, now faintly lost,
I saw their fragrant music tossed;
Mixed dimly with white interludes
Of trilliums starring cool the woods.
Then choral, solitary,
I saw the celandine
Smite bright its golden cymbals,
The starwort shake its timbrels,
The whiteheart’s horns of Fairy,
With many a flourish airy,
Strike silvery into line.