Before Spring / Alice Duer Miller

Before Spring

Fare you well, who love the highways,
Love the cities, tall and bright,
For the forest ways are my ways,
And the birds' songs my delight,
And the stars in river byways
Are my only lamps by night.

I shall see the Spring awaking
While you think it winter still,
Watch the brittle ice forsaking
Edge of marsh and pool and rill,
And the little willows making
Yellow mists against the hill.

Go you to the things you care for,
Violins with trembling string,
Jewels that men do and dare for,
Every lovely, man-wrought thing;
They have caught your spirit, therefore
You have left me ere the Spring.

~~
Alice Duer Miller
from Wings in the Night, 1918

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Alice Duer Miller biography