An Ode to Spring By Richard Le Gallien Is it the spring,
Or are the birds all wrong,
That play on flute and vial,
A thousand strong?
In minstrel galleries of the long,
Deep wood,
Epiphanies of bloom and bud.
Grave minstrels those of deep responsive chant,
But see how yonder goes,
Due drunk,
With giddy slant,
Yawn,
Shelley lark,
And hark,
Him on the giddy brink Of pearly heaven his very anvil clink.
Or watch in fancy how the brimming note Falls like a string of pearls from out his heavenly throat.
Or like a fountain and Hesperides,
Raining at silver rain in gleam and chime,
On backs of ivory girls,
Twice happy rhyme.
Ah,
None of these may make it plain,
No image we may seek,
Shall match the magic Of his gurgling beak.
And many a silly thing that hops and shapes And perks his tiny tail and sideways peeps And flitters little wing,
Seems in his consequential way To tell of spring.
The river warbles soft and runs With fuller curve and sleeker line,
Though on the winter blackened hedge Twigs of unbudding iron shine.
And trampled still the river sedge.
And oh the sun,
I have no friend so generous As this sun,
That comes to meet me With his big warm hands.
And oh the sky,
There is no maid how true Is half so chaste as the pure kiss of greening willow wands Against the intense pale blue of this sweet,
Boundless,
Overarching waste.
And see,
Dear heaven,
But it is the spring,
See yonder,
Yonder by the river there,
Long glittering pearly fingers flash Upon the warm bright air.
Why,
Tis the heavenly palm,
The Christian tree,
Whose budding is a psalm of natural piety.
Soft silver notches up the smooth green stem.
Ah,
Spring must follow them,
It is the spring.
O spirit of spring,
Whose strange instinctive art Makes the bird sing and brings the bud again,
Oh,
In my heart take up thy heavenly rain,
And from its deeps draw out the hidden flower And where it sleeps,
Throughout the winter long.
Oh,
Sweet mysterious power,
Awaken the slothful psalm.
February 7,
1893
