Over the country side
Softly has spring-tide
Crept like a lover uncertain and coy;
And every morning
Some fresh adorning
The world has put on for our further joy.
Green are the hedgerows;
Snowdrop and primrose
Peep from their hiding under the ground;
And see, I send you
The very first two
Violets Annie and I have found.
So do you write us,
And so invite us
To envy your home-enjoyed happiness:
Yet for the flowers
From spring's own bowers
Thanks, many thanks to you nevertheless.
Earth is dull evenness,
Spring is but weariness
Here where the dust turns the greens to grey;
Hotter each wind blows,
Waste world outside grows
Drearier, dustier every day.
Our spring is summer:
Hot days encumber,
Stupify, weld with us sun-scorch annealed
So we may live we
Care not so greatly
How the hot spring goes budding afield.
Even the garden
Looks spoiled and marred when
Mignonette, portulaca, and phlox
Dying sun-stricken
Leave nought to quicken
Our love of home but a border of box,
And we grow rapt in
Rupees, and apt in
Money and moiling to lose all joy
In joys that used to be
Ours, and still should be
Heart's young fruiting that never can cloy.
Withered although they be,
Violets verily
Bring back the scent of the bygone springs,
Whispering pleasantly,
As to Persephone,
Be of good heart. All time hath wings.
