The Spring Thrush.
Jam satis terris nivis atque diræ
Grandinis misit Pater.
Brown bird that swingest on the
windy spray,1
Pouring sweet music forth with silver voice,2
When first the morning wakes the grey-robed day3
Thou biddest every budding copse rejoice.4
Charmed into being by thy ringing note,5
The golden crocus lifts her shining eye,6
And round the edges of the reedy moat7
The fair pale primrose, faltering yet and shy,8
Reflects the earliest light that floods the eastern sky.9
With such a voice as thine, in olden days,10
The Cyprian queen awakened from his sleep11
Her love Adonis ; when the greening haze12
Of opening buds across the elm ’gan creep,13
And crimson tinged the tender larch-tree cone,14
And all along each wood the hazel threw15
Gold-dust from dancing tassels random blown,16
And the fair maiden earth, as Danae knew17
The kindly Jove descend from out the opening blue.18
How swift from silent couch then raised his head19
Bright young Adonis, monarch of the Spring,20
Roused from his weary sleep among the dead21
In those still caves, where never bird doth sing.22
What joy to feel the fresh sweet upper air,23
Thick-fraught with honeyed whispers of his love,24
Touch the soft cheek, and fan the waving hair,25
And bring from earth the crooning of the dove26
And song of all the birds from some new-wakened grove !27
Dear speckled songster, what although the years28
Long since have slain the simpler race of men29
Who heard in that dim past with clearer ears30
Thy music singing down the rocky glen,31
And feigned sweet fables there of nymph and swain,32
And Gods descended to the happy world ?33
To us that hear thy voice restores again34
The golden time, and sees the mist-wreaths furled,35
That years of sadder days ’twixt them and us have curled.36
Sing on, fair bird, like that sweet angel shape37
Whose heart-strings are a lute, and let thy song38
Well up from every glade and purple cape,39
One pure fount springing from a world of wrong.40
Rouse Spring, and all his wealth of sun and shower,41
And wavelets whispering up the yellow sand ;42
Bid from his footprints every shining flower43
Arise to star with blooms this northern strand44
Till winter’s fetters fall from off the loosened land.45