SPRING HAS COME.

INTRA MUROS.

THE sunbeams, lost for half a year,

Slant through my pane their morning rays;

For dry northwesters cold and clear,

The east blows in its thin blue haze.

And first the snowdrop's bells are seen,
Then close against the sheltering wall

The tulip's horn of dusky green,
The peony's dark unfolding ball.

The golden-chaliced crocus burns ;
The long narcissus-blades appear;
The cone-beaked hyacinth returns

To light her blue-flamed chandelier.

SPRING HAS COME.

The willow's whistling lashes, wrung

By the wild winds of gusty March, With sallow leaflets lightly strung, Are swaying by the tufted larch.

The elms have robed their slender spray
With full-blown flower and embryo leaf;
Wide o'er the clasping arch of day

Soars like a cloud their hoary chief.

See the proud tulip's flaunting cup,

That flames in glory for an hour, —

Behold it withering, then look

up,

How meek the forest monarch's flower!

When wake the violets, Winter dies;

When sprout the elm-buds, Spring is near;

When lilacs blossom, Summer cries,

"Bud, little roses! Spring is here!"

The windows blush with fresh bouquets,
Cut with the May-dew on their lips;
The radish all its bloom displays,

Pink as Aurora's finger-tips.

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Nor less the flood of light that showers On beauty's changed corolla-shades,— The walks are gay as bridal bowers

With rows of many-petalled maids.

The scarlet shell-fish click and clash
In the blue barrow where they slide;
The horseman, proud of streak and splash,
Creeps homeward from his morning ride.

Here comes the dealer's awkward string, With neck in rope and tail in knot, Rough colts, with careless country-swing, In lazy walk or slouching trot.

Wild filly from the mountain-side, Doomed to the close and chafing thills, Lend me thy long, untiring stride

To seek with thee thy western hills!

I hear the whispering voice of Spring,
The thrush's trill, the robin's cry,
Like some poor bird with prisoned wing

That sits and sings, but longs to fly.

One little spot where leaves can grow, To love unblamed, to walk unseen,

To dream above, to sleep below!

A GOOD TIME GOING!

BRAVE singer of the coming time,

Sweet minstrel of the joyous present, Crowned with the noblest wreath of rhyme, The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant,

Good by! Good by! Our hearts and hands,
Our lips in honest Saxon phrases,

Cry, God be with him, till he stands
His feet among the English daisies!

'Tis here we part; for other eyes

The busy deck, the fluttering streamer, The dripping arms that plunge and rise, The waves in foam, the ship in tremor, The kerchiefs waving from the pier,

The cloudy pillar gliding o'er him,

The deep blue desert, lone and drear,

With heaven above and home before him!