mad Spring,
But that, as lovers will,
I let my laughing heart go play,
As it had been a fond maid's frolicking;
And, turning thrice the gold I'd got,
In the good gloom
Solemnly wished me--what?
What, and with whom?

II

Moon of half-candied meres
And flurrying, fading snows;
Moon of unkindly rains,
Wild skies, and troubled vanes;
When the Norther snarls and bites,
And the lone moon walks a-cold,
And the lawns grizzle o' nights,
And wet fogs search the fold:
Here in this heart of mine
A dream that warms like wine,
A dream one other knows,
Moon of the roaring weirs
And the sip-sopping close,
February Fill-Dyke,
Shapes like a royal rose--
A red, red rose!

O, but the distance clears!
O, but the daylight grows!
Soon shall the pied wind-flowers
Babble of greening hours,
Primrose and daffodil
Yearn to a fathering sun,
The lark have all his will,
The thrush be never done,
And April, May, and June
Go to the same blythe tune
As this blythe dream of mine!
Moon when the crocus peers,
Moon when the violet blows,
February Fair-Maid,
Haste, and let come the rose--
Let come the rose!

III

The night dislimns, and breaks
Like snows slow thawn;
An evil wind awakes
On lea and lawn;
The low East quakes; and hark!
Out of the kindless dark,
A fierce, protesting lark,
High in the horror of dawn!

A shivering streak of light,
A scurry of rain:
Bleak day from bleaker night
Creeps pinched and fain;
The old gloom thins and dies,
And in the wretched skies
A new gloom, sick to rise,
Sprawls, like a thing in pain.

And yet, what matter--say!--
The shuddering trees,
The Easter-stricken day,
The sodden leas?
The good bird, wing and wing
With Time, finds heart to sing,
As he were hastening
The swallow o'er the seas.

IV

It came with the year's first crocus
In a world of winds and snows--
Because it would, because it must,
Because of life and time and lust;
And a year's first crocus served my turn
As well as the year's first rose.

The March rack hurries and hectors,
The March dust heaps and blows;
But the primrose flouts the daffodil,
And here's the patient violet still;
And the year's first crocus brought me luck,
So hey for the year's first rose!

V

The good South-West on sea-worn wings
Comes shepherding the good rain;
The brave Sea breaks, and glooms, and swings,
A weltering, glittering plain.

Sound, Sea of