Madison Julius Cawein

In Middle Spring

When the fields are rolled into naked gold,
    And a ripple of fire and pearl is blent
With the emerald surges of wood and wold
    Like a flower-foam bursting violent;
When the dingles and deeps of the woodlands old
    Are glad with a sibilant life new sent,
Too rare to be told are the manifold
    Sweet fancies that quicken redolent
In the heart that no longer is cold.

How it knows of the wings of the hawk that swings
    From the drippled dew scintillant seen;
Why the red-bird hides where it sings and sings
    In melodious quiverings of green;
How the wind to the red-bud and dogwood brings
    Big pearls of worth and corals of sheen,
Whiles he lisps to the strings of a lute that rings
    Of love in the South who is queen,
Where the fountain of poesy springs.

Go seek in the ray for a sworded fay
    The chestnut's buds into blooms that rips;
And look in the brook that runs laughing gay
    For the nymph with the laughing lips;
In the brake for the dryad whose eyes are gray,
    From whose bosom the perfume drips;
The faun hid away where the grasses sway
    Thick ivy low down on his hips,
Pursed lips on a syrinx at play.

So ho, for the rose, the Romeo rose,
    And the lyric he hides in his heart;
And ho, for the epic the oak tree knows,
    Sonorous and mighty in art.
The lily with woes that her white face shows
    Hath a satire she yearns to impart,
But none of those, her hates and her foes,
    For a heart that sings but for sport,
And shifts where the song-wind blows.