And on he goes like one who rose
To walk a sea of spiders’ lace
Along the fields, and seems to sense
The breath of heaven on his face
And now can see a lovely thing
To charm his blinking eye:
An opening, a sky of blue
With cloudlets coasting by!
The fragrance of the morning!
His sense unto him shows
The Earth, and springing from its dew,
The grass with sweet winds sighing through,
Bushes and trees as yet wet through
Borne with the happy air into
Both channels of his nose.
And to his ears now comes the tale
In which all this is said,
The treetop finches descant high
While on some low spray growing nigh
Blackbird both murmurs lowly by
And frames the melody’s reply.
Eager to bring this to his eye
The good man gladly runs,
The tunnel opens to the sky,
He issues forth at once.
All in a woodland clearing
The small, unresting bee
Visits each offered flower,
The breeze each offered tree,
The dandelion thrusts forth his head
With yellow fire upon it,
The trim, demure anemone
Her neat, white, modest bonnet,
The little winking violet
By light unvisited
And tiny-fingered stitchworts
Their dainty napkins spread,
Within the wood the bluebells
Their peals of colour ring,
He knows the place – Old England.
Also the season – Spring.
His long, perplexing journey seems
No more to vex his head,
Like one condemned and now reprieved
He leaps for joy instead,
And shouting runs and waves his arms
With unrestricted mirth,
And throws his face down in the grass
To kiss the reeking earth.
We come from utter darkness
And soon return again,
Why is it, in this fleeting life
Of grief, of loss and pain,
The fit of bitter sorrow
Outdures the weary Moon
While joy and with it comfort
Dissolve away so soon?
Just as the pecking sparrow
At Winter’s scanty scraps
May not enjoy his morsel,
The short day’s last perhaps
For fear the shadow of the hawk
His business overlaps.
No sooner goes the good man
Upon that meadow blest,
No sooner is his outstretched back
Upon the rich earth pressed
Than all his limbs go tense again,
His brain can have no rest.
Once more into the tunnel
He has to make his way…