Nature gives us when her gifts are least, Sing to our hearts, oh, little voice of love. 

 

 

 A JANUARY MORNING 

 How strangely shone the crescent of the moon In the grey twilight dawning o'er the sea; A star, that seemed of stars a memory, (As faint as lilies on a sultry noon) Ebbed in the chilly waxing of the morn; The sea was rest in motion; hardly stirred Its waves upon the beach; there was no bird To break its undersong of silence born. 

 The misty shadows lay upon the trees, Whose colour was but echo of the tone That earth and sky were wrapped in, harmonies Of wedded hue were visible alone, —And over all a breath of memory blown, Of other dawnings upon other seas. 

 

 

 FEBRUARY 

 Can there be aught to touch the sleeping dead To consciousness; can love still call to love Across that dark abyss; can feeling move Dead heart and brain, that once with blood were fed, To stir and quicken in their narrow bed, For that which yet is living?  We believe Such force has love, that it may still retrieve Its heart's Eurydice among the dead. 

 I shall awake, then, shall awake my soul— Not when full summer beautifies the earth, But with the first sweet stirring of the sap, Ere yet the fields are green or leaves unroll: I shall but sleep awhile in Nature's lap, To be reborn with February's rebirth. 

 

 

 TO APRIL 

 I 

 'Tis not alone the loveliness of spring That makes spring lovely; there's a sense behind Of wonders, deeper than the eye can find In daffodils, or swallows on the wing; A subtler pleasure than the sense can bind When on the dusty roads the rain-drops sing As March turns April, and the hours bring Songs to deaf ears, and beauty to the blind. 

 April is secret nature's treasure room, Which she unlocks to us who love her well In magic moments; then indeed we see The wonder of all spring-times, from the gloom Of world-beginnings, long ere Adam fell— And all the beauty of all springs to be. 

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