I hear a rainbird singing Far off. How fine and clear His plaintive voice comes ringing With rapture to the ear!
Over the misty wood-lots, Across the first spring heat, Comes the enchanted cadence, So clear, so solemn-sweet.
How often I have hearkened To that high pealing strain Across wild cedar barrens, Under the soft gray rain!
How often I have wondered, And longed in vain to know The source of that enchantment, That touch of human woe!
O brother, who first taught thee To haunt the teeming spring With that sad mortal wisdom Which only age can bring?
When you hear the white-throat pealing From a tree-top far away, And the hills are touched with purple At the borders of the day;
When the redwing sounds his whistle At the coming on of spring, And the joyous April pipers Make the alder marshes ring;
When the wild new breath of being Whispers to the world once more, And before the shrine of beauty Every spirit must adore;
When long thoughts come back with twilight, And a tender deepened mood Shows the eyes of the beloved Like the hepaticas in the wood;
Ah, remember, when to nothing Save to love your heart gives heed, And spring takes you to her bosom,-- So it was with Golden Weed!
Oh, well the world is dreaming Under the April moon, Her soul in love with beauty, Her senses all a-swoon!
Pure hangs the silver crescent Above the twilight wood, And pure the silver music Wakes from the marshy flood.
O Earth, with all thy transport, How comes it life should seem A shadow in the moonlight, A murmur in a dream?
I know a shining meadow stream That winds beneath an Eastern hill, And all year long in sun or gloom Its murmuring voice is never still.
The summer dies more gently there, The April flowers are earlier,-- The first warm rain-wind from the Sound Sets all their eager hearts astir.
And there when lengthening twilights fall As softly as a wild bird's wing, Across the valley in the dusk I hear the silver flute of spring.
In the wondrous star-sown night, In the first sweet warmth of spring, I lie awake and listen To hear the glad earth sing.
I hear the brook in the wood Murmuring, as it goes, The song of the happy journey Only the wise heart knows.
I hear the trilling note Of the tree-frog under the hill, And the clear and watery treble Of his brother, silvery shrill.