SPEING POEMS 111 



" It is the first mild day of March, 

 Each minute sweeter tlian before ; 

 The redbreast sings from the tall larch 

 That stands beside the door. 



" There is a blessing in the air, 



Which seems a sense of joy to yield 

 To the bare trees, and mountains bare, 

 And grass in the green field. 



" Love, now a universal birth. 

 From heart to heart is stealing. 

 From earth to man, from man to earth; 

 It is the hour of feeling. 



" One moment now may give us more 



Than years of toiling reason : 

 Our minds shall drink at every pore 



The spirit of the season." 



It is the simplicity of such lines, like the naked 

 branches of the trees or the unclothed fields, and 

 the spring-like depth of feeling and suggestion they 

 hold, that make them so appropriate to this season. 



At this season I often find myself repeating these 

 lines of his also : — 



" My heart leaps up, when I behold 



A rainbow in the sky; 

 So was it, when my life began ; 

 So is it, now I am a man ; 



So be it, when I shall grow old. 



Or let me die ! " 



Though there are so few good poems especially 

 commemorative of the spring, there have no doubt 

 been spring poets — poets with such newness and 

 fullness of life, and such quickening power, that the 

 world is re-created, as it were, beneath their touch. 

 Of course this is in a measure so with all real poets. 



