robe, Wraps the daisy and the globe, Transforming what it doth infold, Life out of death, new out of old, Painting fawns’ and leopards’ fells, Seethes the gulf-encrimsoning shells, Fires garden with a joyful blaze Of tulips in the morning’s rays. The dead log touched bursts into leaf, The wheat-blade whispers of the sheaf. What god is this imperial Heat, Earth’s prime secret, sculpture’s seat? Doth it bear hidden in its heart Water-line patterns of all art, All figures, organs, hues, and graces? Is it Dædalus? is it Love? Or walks in mask almighty Jove, And drops from Power’s redundant horn All seeds of beauty to be born?

Where shall we keep the holiday, And duly greet the entering May? Too strait and low our cottage doors, And all unmeet our carpet floors; Nor spacious court, nor monarch’s hall, Suffice to hold the festival. Up and away! where haughty woods Front the liberated floods: We will climb the broad-backed hills, Hear the uproar of their joy; We will mark the leaps and gleams Of the new-delivered streams, And the murmuring rivers of sap Mount in the pipes of the trees, Giddy with day, to the topmost spire, Which for a spike of tender green Bartered its powdery cap; And the colours of joy in the bird, And the love in its carol heard, Frog and lizard in holiday coats, And turtle brave in his golden spots; We will hear the tiny roar Of the insects evermore, While cheerful cries of crag and plain Reply to the thunder of river and main.

As poured the flood of the ancient sea Spilling over mountain chains, Bending forests as bends the sedge, Faster flowing o’er the plains,— A world-wide wave with a foaming edge That rims the running silver sheet,— So pours the deluge of the heat Broad northward o’er the land, Painting artless paradises, Drugging herbs with Syrian spices, Fanning secret fires which glow In columbine and clover-blow, Climbing the northern zones, Where a thousand pallid towns Lie like cockles by the main, Or tented armies on a plain. The million-handed sculptor moulds Quaintest bud and blossom folds, The million-handed painter pours Opal hues and purple dye; Azaleas flush the island floors, And the tints of heaven reply.

Wreaths for the May! for happy Spring To-day shall all her dowry bring, The love of kind, the joy, the grace, Hymen of element and race, Knowing well to celebrate With song and hue and star and state, With tender light and youthful cheer, The spousals of the new-born year. Lo Love’s inundation poured Over space and race abroad!

Spring is strong and virtuous, Broad-sowing, cheerful, plenteous, Quickening underneath the mould 

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