Symbolby David Morton
My faith is all a doubtful thing,
Wove on a doubtful loom, –
Until there comes, each showery spring,
A cherry-tree in bloom;
And Christ who died upon a tree
That death had stricken bare,
Comes beautifully back to me,
In blossoms, everywhere.
Gray Eyesby Sara Teasdale
It was April when you came
The first time to me,
And my first look in your eyes
Was like my first look at the sea.
We have been together
Four Aprils now
Watching for the green
On the swaying willow bough;
Yet whenever I turn
To your gray eyes over me,
It is as though I looked
For the first time at the sea.
The Look
by Sarah Teasdale
Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.
Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,
Robin's lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin's eyes
Haunts me night and day.
Aprilby Sara Teasdale
The roofs are shining from the rain.
The sparrows titter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.
Yet the back-yards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree–
I could not be so sure of Spring
Save that it sings in me.
I Taste a Liquor Never Brewedby Emily Dickinson
I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!
Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.
When the landlord turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove's door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!
Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!
Rain Musicby Joseph Seamon Cotter
On the dusty earth-drum
Beats the falling rain;
Now a whispered murmur,
Now a louder strain.
Slender, silvery drumsticks,
On an ancient drum,
Beat the mellow music
Bidding life to come.
Chords of earth awakened,
Notes of greening spring,
Rise and fall triumphant
Over every thing.
Slender, silvery drumsticks
Beat the long tattoo–
God, the Great Musician,
Calling life anew.
Alchemy
by Sara Teasdale
I lift my heart as spring lifts up
A yellow daisy to the rain;
My heart will be a lovely cup
Altho' it holds but pain.
For I shall learn from flower and leaf
That color every drop they hold,
To change the lifeless wine of grief
To living gold.
Spring
by William Morris
Spring am I, too soft of heart
Much to speak ere I depart:
Ask the Summer-tide to prove
The abundance of my love.
The Despot
by Edith Nesbit
The garden mould was damp and chill;
Winter had had his brutal will
Since over all the year's content
His devastating legions went.
The Spring's bright banners came: there woke
Millions of little growing folk
Who thrilled to know the winter done,
Gave thanks, and strove towards the sun.
Not so the elect; reserved, and slow
To trust a stranger-sun and grow,
They hesitated, cowered and hid,
Waiting to see what others did.
Yet even they, a little, grew,
Put out prim leaves to day and dew,
And lifted level formal heads
In their appointed garden beds.
The gardener came: he coldly loved
The flowers that lived as he approved,
That duly, decorously grew
As he, the despot, meant them to.
He saw the wildlings flower more brave
And bright than any cultured slave;
Yet, since he had not set them there,
He hated them for being fair.
So he uprooted, one by one,
The free things that had loved the sun,
The happy, eager, fruitful seeds
Who had not known that they were weeds.
