the icy wind Might rule the forest to his mind. Who would freeze in frozen brakes? Back to books and sheltered home, And wood-fire flickering on the walls, To hear, when, ’mid our talk and games, Without the baffled north-wind calls. But soft! a sultry morning breaks; The cowslips make the brown brook gay; A happier hour, a longer day. Now the sun leads in the May, Now desire of action wakes, And the wish to roam.

The caged linnet in the Spring Hearkens for the choral glee, When his fellows on the wing Migrate from the Southern Sea; When trellised grapes their flowers unmask, And the new-born tendrils twine, The old wine darkling in the cask Feels the bloom on the living vine, And bursts the hoops at hint of Spring: And so, perchance, in Adam’s race, Of Eden’s bower some dream-like trace Survived the Flight, and swam the Flood, And wakes the wish in youngest blood To tread the forfeit Paradise, And feed once more the exile’s eyes; And ever when the happy child In May beholds the blooming wild, And hears in heaven the bluebird sing, “Onward,” he cries, “your baskets bring,— In the next field is air more mild, And o’er yon hazy crest is Eden’s balmier Spring.”

Not for a regiment’s parade, Nor evil laws or rulers made, Blue Walden rolls its cannonade, But for a lofty sign Which the Zodiac threw, That the bondage-days are told, And waters free as winds shall flow. Lo! how all the tribes combine To rout the flying foe. See, every patriot oak-leaf throws His elfin length upon the snows, Not idle, since the leaf all day Draws to the spot the solar ray, Ere sunset quarrying inches down, And half-way to the mosses brown; While the grass beneath the rime Has hints of the propitious time, And upward pries and perforates Through the cold slab a thousand gates, Till green lances peering through Bend happy in the welkin blue.

April cold with dropping rain Willows and lilacs brings again, The whistle of returning birds, And trumpet-lowing of the herds. The scarlet maple-keys betray What potent blood hath modest May; What fiery force the earth renews, The wealth of forms, the flush of hues; Joy shed in rosy waves abroad Flows from the heart of Love, the Lord.

Hither rolls the storm of heat; I feel its finer billows beat Like a sea which me infolds; Heat with viewless fingers moulds, Swells, and mellows, and matures, Paints, and flavours, and allures, Bird and brier inly warms, Still enriches and transforms, Gives the reed and lily length, Adds to oak and oxen strength, Boils the world in tepid lakes, Burns the world, yet burnt remakes; Enveloping heat, enchanted 

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