So shy of the nettles but soft of the grass
The flower-sprite sighs and awakens like glass
That clears as it warms when it loses its frost,
She wakes all a-flutter and mourns for time lost.
Her long-dreaméd visions she pleads with to stay -
They vanish like vapor when night becomes day.
She rubs from her eyes twinkling sleep-seeds, and yawns,
And languidly stretches her diamond-dew'd fronds,
Embarking on errands of being awake:
The long sleep of winter in others to break.
The Rowan and Plum are the first to return
To greet their friend Pine, for companions he yearn'd
In long nights of winter when he kept his hair,
For Pine trees sleep not, and never go bare.
And then wakes the flower and then wakes the shrub,
And then wake the creatures, the mother and cub.
Slow pulses of life quick encircle the world
That flow from the magic of tendrils unfurled
By bell-flowered spirit, harbinger of spring -
She melts all the icicles and so tears bring
To nourish the saplings and all of the roots
That grow into strong trees and bear healthy fruits.
O Nymph as you draw back the wintery pall
I envy thy function and work not at all.
I do love the spring near as any who breathes -
The sweet-smelling nectar, the fast-growing wreathes -
But all this you've done and the sun's far from high:
He's barely set out on his sojourn of sky!
To wake at the crisp dawn of spring is not me,
The slow tide of dream seas is where I shall be,
So stir me not yet from this bed where I've lain
'Til roused I become by the sweet summer rain.