Easter / John Freeman

Easter

With Earth's arising riseth He from death,
        To all His faithful saith
                With urgent breath:

"Wake ye, out of your Winter-weary sleep!"
        And the slow pulses leap.
                No more then creep

The heavy days to night, and nights to day.
        The cloud-pack hastens away
                If He but say

Far off and faint and tremulous, "Awake!"
        How the heart's enemies quake
                When His steps shake

 
The silence they have woven as a shroud
        Upon it! Great and proud
                Alike they are bowed.

And as when lovely, radiant queenlike Spring
        Queenlike with her doth bring
                Every dear thing

Earth faints for; and the woods and gleaming meads
        Fulfilled are of their needs;
                And the lost seeds

Are found in keen green blades, and song again
        In birds, and the sweet rain
                Doth teach the plain

That gladness of the heaven-neighbouring hills;
        And the whole amazed Earth thrills
                With bliss that fills

Every hid channel and cell: — So when He rises
        In thousand sweet disguises,
                What swift surprises,

Heats, pregnant showers, flowers and rich airs He gives,
        Till the soul truly lives;
                And the fugitives —

Fear, Hate, Despair — ev'n as they fly are slain!
        O, precious ev'n the pain
                When in each vein

The leaping blood doth the old languors quicken;
        Precious, for hopes that sicken,
                To feel joys thicken

Like sudden leaves wherethrough the cool winds stir;
        Precious past gold and myrrh
                To feel Him near.

But as to some east hillside's dewless breast,
        Naked of leaf and nest,
                Spring, the loved guest,

Comes not, though all the woods her blisses cover.
        And larks but yonder hover
                The soft turf over;

Barren of Thy spring, Lord, unvisited
        Of any rains; but dead,
                Unmemoried,

My heart lies; yea, Thy spring neglects it yet.
        O, canst Thou still forget,
                My need forget?

~~
John Freeman (1880-1929)
from Fifty Poems, 1911

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

John Freeman biography

Jusben, Spring morning, 2011. CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.