Because it is the Spring

Shall I be glad because the year is young?
The shy, swift-coming green is on the trees;
The jonquil's passion to the wind is flung;
I catch the Mayflower's breath upon the breeze.

The birds, aware that mating-time has come,
Swell their plumed, tuneful throats with love and glee;
The streams, beneath the winter's thraldom dumb,
Set free at last, run singing to the sea.

Shall I be glad because the year is young?
Nay; you yourself were young that other year:
Though sad and low the tender songs you sung,
My fond heart heard them, and stood still to hear.

Can I forget the day you said good-by,
And robbed the world and me for alien spheres?
Do I not know, when wild winds sob and die,
Your voice is on them, sadder than my tears?

You come to tell me heaven itself is cold,—
The world was warm from which you fled away,—
And moon and stars and sun are very old—
And you?—oh, you were young in last year's May:

Now you, who were the very heart of spring,
Are old, and share the secrets of the skies;
But I lack something that no year will bring,
Since May no longer greets me with your eyes.