Filling the forests with a pleasant din,

And the soiled snow creeps secretly away,

Comes the small busy sparrow, primed with glee,

First preacher in the naked wilderness,

Piping an end to all the long distress

From every fence and every leafless tree.

Now with soft slight and viewless artifice

Winter's iron work is wondrously undone;

In all the little hollows cored with ice

The clear brown pools stand simmering in the sun,

[15]

Frail lucid worlds, upon whose tremulous floors

All day the wandering water-bugs at will,

Shy mariners whose oars are never still,

Voyage and dream about the heightening shores.

The bluebird, peeping from the gnarlèd thorn,

Prattles upon his frolic flute, or flings,

In bounding flight across the golden morn,

An azure gleam from off his splendid wings.

Here the slim-pinioned swallows sweep and pass

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