And the bold first buds of the whin wax golden, and witness arise of the thorn and the larch:

Wild April, enkindled to laughter and storm by the kiss of the wildest of winds that blow,

Calls loud on his brother for witness; his hands that were laden with blossom are sprinkled with snow,

And his lips breathe winter, and laugh, and relent; and the live woods feel not the frost's flame parch;

For the flame of the spring that consumes not but quickens is felt at the heart of the forest aglow,

And the sparks that enkindled and fed it were strewn from the hands of the gods of the winds of March.

[Pg 174]

[Pg 174]

THE COMMONWEAL

1887

I

Eight hundred years and twenty-one

Have shone and sunken since the land

Whose name is freedom bore such brand

As marks a captive, and the sun

Beheld her fettered hand.

II

But ere dark time had shed as rain

Or sown on sterile earth as seed

That bears no fruit save tare and weed

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