In midnight’s heaven; the while a drowsy tune The singing shallows make to shine and shade, While through the budding boughs the warm winds wade, Sowing in petals white the year’s first rune.
The low of kine comes in from farms afar, The chopper’s axe rings blithely down the wind, And here at even comes the first pale star, In the soft heaven over the woods behind Where the warm south hath blown in, bland and kind; ’Tis here I love to be; to feel my heart Wake with the season’s in its first glad start, When the young year gropes slow for heart and mind.
Far out in maple woods, with laugh and song, The jocund sugar-makers ease their toil With mirth, the sunny, melting hours along, Where, brim with sap, the great iron kettles boil, And troughs spill over with their amber spoil Of generous maples; evening skies loom soft With veil of stars, in heaven’s deep wells aloft, Where great mossed branches lift and spread and coil.
Out in far wastes and under sun-pierced glades, Where naked boughs put forth their misty buds, The snows are rotting, and the thin ice fades Like wasting steel; alone in gloom of woods, The soilèd drifts still lift their shrunken hoods In storm-swathed hollows; by far river shores The sun-warmed wind hath eaten the ice in cores, Winnowing with warmth the frosty solitudes.
The year hath draped his mantle of beauty on, And tuned his pipe to melody once more; All weazened faces put new youth upon, And I am fain to learn the young year’s lore;
His wisdom taught of heaven and wood and shore; To drink anew of life’s fresh ecstasy, To dream new love in sky and field and tree, Where Spring’s first footsteps blossom the forest floor.