7

THE PALM WILLOW

SEE, whirling snow sprinkles the starvèd fields,
The birds have stayed to sing ;

No covert yet their fairy harbour yields.
When cometh Spring?

Ah! in their tiny throats what songs unborn
Are quenched each morn.

The lenten lilies, through the frost that push,
Their yellow heads withhold:

The woodland willow stands a lonely bush
Of nebulous gold;

There the Spring-goddess cowers in faint attire
Of frightened fire.

8

ASIAN BIRDS

In this May-month, by grace of heaven, things shoot apace. The waiting multitude

of fair boughs in the wood, How few days have arrayed their beauty in green shade

What have I seen or heard? it was the yellow bird Sang in the tree: he flew

a flame against the blue; Upward he flashed. Again, hark! 'tis his heavenly strain.

Another! Hush! Behold,

many, like boats of gold,

From waving branch to branch

their airy bodies launch. What music is like this,

where each note is a kiss?

The golden willows lift

their boughs the sun to sift: Their sprays they droop to screen the sky with veils of green, A floating cage of song,

where feathered lovers throng.

How the delicious notes

come bubbling from their throats! Full and sweet how they are shed like round pearls from a thread! The motions of their flight are wishes of delight.

Hearing their song I trace

the secret of their grace.

Ah, could I this fair time

so fashion into rhyme,

The poem that I sing

would be the voice of spring.

9

JANUARY

COLD is the winter day, misty and dark :
The sunless sky with faded gleams is rent;
And patches of thin snow outlying, mark
The landscape with a drear disfigurement.

The trees their mournful branches lift aloft:
The oak with knotty twigs is full of trust,
With bud-thronged bough the cherry in the croft;
The chestnut holds her gluey knops upthrust.

No birds sing, but the starling chaps his bill And chatters mockingly; the newborn lambs Within their strawbuilt fold beneath the hill

Answer with plaintive cry their bleating dams.

Their voices melt in welcome dreams of spring,

Green grass and leafy trees and sunny skies: My fancy decks the woods, the thrushes sing, Meadows are gay, bees hum and scents arise.

And God the Maker doth my heart grow bold
To praise for wintry works not understood,
Who all the worlds and ages doth behold,
Evil and good as one, and all as good.