Gossiping on the country-side,
Spring and the wandering breezes say,
God has thrown Heaven open wide
And let the thrushes out to-day.
The Day before April. [Mary Carolyn Davies]
The day before April
Alone, alone,
I walked in the woods
And I sat on a stone.
I sat on a broad stone
And sang to the birds.
The tune was God's making
But I made the words.
Berkshires in April. [Clement Wood]
It is not Spring — not yet —
But at East Schaghticoke I saw an ivory birch
Lifting a filmy red mantle of knotted buds
Above the rain-washed whiteness of her arms.
It is not Spring — not yet —
But at Hoosick Falls I saw a robin strutting,
Thin, still, and fidgety,
Not like the puffed, complacent ball of feathers
That dawdles over the cidery Autumn loam.
It is not Spring — not yet —
But up the stocky Pownal hills
Some springy shrub, a scarlet gash on the grayness,
Climbs, flaming, over the melting snows.
It is not Spring — not yet —
But at Williamstown the willows are young and golden,
Their tall tips flinging the sun's rays back at him;
And as the sun drags over the Berkshire crests,
The willows glow, the scarlet bushes burn,
The high hill birches shine like purple plumes,
A royal headdress for the brow of Spring.
It is the doubtful, unquiet end of Winter,
And Spring is pulsing out of the wakening soil.
In Excelsis. [Thomas S. Jones, Jr.]