Spring Song

Now I am made strange again
With the old-time wildness.
Spring, that loves the hearts of men,
Save me by thy mildness.
Nay, thou art not mild!
Thou art not any child.
Untamed art thou and swift to run,
Exquisite — savage as the sun.
A golden beast, in jungles of warm air
I make my natural lair.
Last night, in forests of the wind
I kept my watch and ranged.
With haughty eyes I viewed my kind,
Magnificent, estranged.

We are not gentle in our mood
When the great Spring takes our blood,
But passionate and fretful,
And of mankind forgetful.
'T is then we must be free!
The daughter of the sky and wood,
Let no one lay a hand on me.
Nay, touch me not in Spring!
Hardly look my way!
A glance is such a heavy thing, —
I need no friends to-day!
In Summer maybe I 'II grow still
And bide because I love.
There's no will now save my will,
My soul is fain to rove.

Always with the Spring
Comes the thought of journeying,
Mixed with the subtlest languor
hat would advise me to the ground
Thereon to lie as soft as sound
That in its bosom stirs.
And so I do, — until at length
Grown primitive with anger
That has no source save youth and joy and strength,
I run and shout 'twixt earth and sky,
And Ring them from me and defy.

Being in need of prey,
Made boastful with the Spring one day,
To the granite rock that stood my way,
"Bubble, bubble, blue and gray,"
Quoth I;
"If I should touch you with my hand,
How you would quiver from the land!
I could make earth, sky, and seas
Tremble from me like the breeze."
Then everything grew soft and fair
Breathed Out of visible air;
And then, because I loved it so,
I let the whole earth shine and grow.