Pale season, watcher in unvexed suspense,

Still priestess of the patient middle day,

Betwixt wild March's humored petulence

And the warm wooing of green kirtled May,

Maid month of sunny peace and sober grey,

Weaver of flowers in sunward glades that ring

With murmur of libation to the spring:

As memory of pain, all past, is peace,

And joy, dream-tasted, hath the deepest cheer,

So art thou sweetest of all months that lease

The twelve short spaces of the flying year.

The bloomless days are dead, and frozen fear

No more for many moons shall vex the earth,

Dreaming of summer and fruit laden mirth.

The grey song-sparrows full of spring have sung

Their clear thin silvery tunes in leafless trees;

The robin hops, and whistles, and among

The silver-tasseled poplars the brown bees

Murmur faint dreams of summer harvestries;

The creamy sun at even scatters down

 Prev. P 11/184 next