When Spring comes on / Charles Leonard Moore

LI

But when resistless, royal Spring comes on,
I have no need for thee, no, none at all;
The distant echo of her herald horn
Swells in my breast and drowns all other call.
The first, faint token of her presence told,
As, grass new-bladed on some margin field,
Arbutus breaking from its leafy mould,
Or crocus peering from some stony shield,
These lay the ghosts that threaten in my thought,
And bid dreams vanish and the senses live,
And bring my bride to me, the Spring, long sought,
Who swears and kisses and is fugitive,
     Spring, who makes quick the streams and trees and birds
     And put the eloquence in mortal words.

~~
Charles Leonard Moore (1854-1928)
from Book of Day-Dreams, 1888

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

Charles Leonard Moore biography