he winds and the sunbeams are warring and
strengthening with joy that they live,
Spring, from reluctance enkindled to rapture, from slumber to
strife,
Stirs, and repents, and is winter, and weeps, and awakes as the
frosts forgive,
And the dark chill death of the woodland is troubled, and dies
into life.
And the honey of heaven, of the hives whence night feeds full on
the springtide's breath,
Fills fuller the lips of the lustrous air with delight in the
dawn:
Each blossom enkindling with love that is life and subsides with a
smile into death
Arises and lightens and sets as a star from her sphere withdrawn.
Not sleep, in the rapture of radiant dreams, when sundawn smiles on
the night,
Shows earth so sweet with a splendour and fragrance of life that
is love:
Each blade of the glad live grass, each bud that receives or
rejects the light,
Salutes and responds to the marvel of Maytime around and above.

Joy gives thanks for the sight and the savour of heaven, and is
humbled
With awe that exults in thanksgiving: the towers of the flowers
of the trees
Shine sweeter than snows that the hand of the season has melted and
crumbled,
And fair as the foam that is lesser of life than the loveliest of
these.
But the sense of a life more lustrous with joy and enkindled of
glory
Than man's was ever or may be, and briefer than joys most brief,
Bids man's heart bend and adore, be the man's head golden or hoary,
As it leapt but a breath's time since and saluted the flower and
the leaf.
The rapture that springs into love at the sight of the world's
exultation
Takes not a sense of rebuke from the sense of triumphant awe:
But the spirit that quickens the body fulfils it with mute
adoration,
And the knees would fain bow down as the eyes that rejoiced and
saw.

II

Fair and sublime as the face of the dawn is the splendour of May,
But the sky's and the sea's joy fades not as earth's pride passes
away.
Yet hardly the sun's first lightning or laughter of love on the sea
So humbles the heart into worship that knows not or doubts if it be
As the first f