It’s hey, it’s hey! when daisies sway
Among the meads where Summer speeds;
When ripeness bends each fruited spray,
And harvest wafts adown the day
The feathered seeds of golden weeds:
When daisies sway among the meads,
It’s hey, it’s hey! oh, let’s away,
My heart and I, where longing leads.
III
It’s ay, it’s ay! when red leaves fly,
And strew the ways where Autumn strays;
When round the beech and chestnut lie
The sturdy burrs where creeks run dry,
And frosts and haze turn golds to grays:
When red leaves fly and strew the ways,
It’s ay, it’s ay! oh, let us hie,
My love and I, where dreaming says.
IV
Wassail! wassail! when snow and hail
Make white the lands where Winter stands;
When wild winds from the forests flail
The last dead leaves, and, in the gale,
The trees wring hands in ghostly bands:
When snow and hail make white the lands,
Wassail! wassail! oh, let us trail,
My heart and I, where love commands.
REVEALMENT
A sense of sadness in the golden air,
A pensiveness, that has no part in care,
As if the Season, by some woodland pool,
Braiding the early blossoms in her hair,
Seeing her loveliness reflected there,
Had sighed to find herself so beautiful.
A breathlessness, a feeling as of fear,
Holy and dim, as of a mystery near,
As if the World, about us, listening went,
With lifted finger and hand-hollowed ear,
Harkening a music, that we can not hear,
Haunting the quickening earth and firmament.
A prescience of the soul that has no name,
Expectancy that is both wild and tame,
As if the Earth, from out its azure ring
Of heavens, looked to see, as white as flame,—
As Perseus once to chained Andromeda came,—
The swift, divine revealment of the Spring.