Which comes to us so suddenly,
Blown over the hills from the fruitful South;
Full of the laughter of the laughing sea
She comes with singing mouth.
The cool, sweet Wiltshire meadows lie
With buttercups from end to end;
In secret woods are small blooms, shy
Bluebells the good gods send.
There is no cloud that wanders by
But is my friend.
And now the gorse is gold again;
The violet hides beneath the leaves;
And quickened by thin April rain
The debonair young sapling weaves
His coat of lightest green; again
Birds chirp at the eaves.
Each hidden brook and waterfall,
Each tiny daisy in the sun
Calls to my heart—the hedgerows all
So full of twigs, they call, each one;
And with insistent voices call
The roads where the wild flowers run.
O set with grass and the English hedge
Are the long, white roads which wind and wind—
Roads which reach to the world’s edge,
Where the world is left behind.
AT THE CRIB
AGAIN the royalties are shed,
Disdiademed the kingly head,
He lies again—ah, very small!—
Among the cattle in the stall,
Or in His slender mother’s arms
Is snuggled up from baby harms.
The Tower of Ivory leans down
From Paradise’s topmost crown;
The House of Gold on earth takes root;
From Jesse comes a saving shoot,
For Mary gives (O manifold
Her courtesies!) that we may hold
Our little Lord’s poor fragile hands
And feet, the guerdon of all lands.
No fool need fail to enter in
The guarded Heaven we strive to win,
Or miss upon a casual street
The fiery impress of His feet,
But touch with every stone and sod
The extended fingers of our God,
And see in twigs of the stiff hedgerows,
Or in the woods where quiet grows
Among the naked Winter trees,
A thousand times these mysteries:
The branching arms with Christly fruit,
The thorns which bruise His head and foot.