YOUNG May sat fainting and chill,

Leaping, longing, in my breast:Let him come that loves me true,Let him come that I love best,I will tell him what I mean,Now the wood-birds tell it too,Now the woods are green.’While the woods were bare,‘Oh I’ she sighed, ‘my heart is grey,Shrinking, shivering, in my breast:Love me, hate me, as they may,None of them…

And ‘Sweetest sweetness is ended soon,’And ‘Never heed for the thorn.’‘Love’s hour passes away,’White rose breathed in my ear;Red rose whispered ‘No need to fear;The day is enough for day.’Shall I heed white or red?Shall I heed both aright?Sighing and laughing, red and white,‘Tis ‘Love her’ they both have said.

Tarried among late blossoms, loth to go,Gather the darkening cloud-wraps round her faceAnd weep herself away in last week’s rain?Can no new sunlight waken her again?‘Yes,’ one pale rose a-blowHas answered from the trellised lane;The flickering swallows answer ‘No.’From out the dim grey skyThe arrowy swarm breaks forth and specks the air,While, one by one,…

‘Tis the bird’s trill because the spring is hereAnd spring means trilling on a blossomy bough;‘Tis the spring joy that has no why or how,But sees the sun and hopes not nor can fear–Spring is so sweet and spring seems all the year.Dear voice, the first-come birds but trill as thou.Oh music of my heart,…

And lay them by the headstone, for my sake,My token and remembrance with the rest:But here, where in the brightening of the westI see her mountains grow into the sky,Her native world, and mine because of her,Here, where that low sigh of the pinewood’s stir,That was her dearest music, fills all sound,I am with her;And…

And for this crowding to and fro,And thud and roar of wheels and feet,Were elm-trees and the linnet’s trill,The little gurgles of the rill,And breath of meadow-flowers that blowEre roses make the summer sweet.‘Twas long ago; ’twas yesterday:Our peach would just be new with leaves,The swallow pair that used to layTheir glimmering eggs beneath our…