A Distant Spring / Charles Hanson Towne

A Distant Spring

I who love the Spring so well
     Shall be sleeping, some glad day,
When her hosts come back to dwell
     In their old, familiar way.

I shall live, alas! no more
     In some distant April hour,
When the Spring flings wide her door,
     Calling leaf, and bloom, and flower.

I shall sleep but I shall dream
     In my home beneath the ground,
And my slumbering heart shall teem
     With its visions deep, profound.

I shall know, ere you will guess
     (Though with life I have no part),
What new golden loveliness
     Stirs within the old earth's heart.

I shall hear the first soft sound
     When the Spring is born anew,
And rejoice, beneath the ground,
     At the bliss to come to you.

~~
Charles Hanson Towne (1877-1949)
from The Quiet Singer, and other poems, 1908

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

Charles Hanson Towne biography