Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

The Coming of the Spring

By Nora Perry (1831–1896)

THERE’S something in the air

That’s new and sweet and rare—

A scent of summer things,

A whir as if of wings.

There’s something, too, that’s new

In the color of the blue

That’s in the morning sky,

Before the sun is high.

And though, on plain and hill,

’Tis winter, winter still,

There’s something seems to say

That winter’s had its day.

And all this changing tint,

This whispering stir, and hint

Of bud and bloom and wing,

Is the coming of the spring.

And to-morrow or to-day

The brooks will break away

From their icy, frozen sleep,

And run and laugh and leap!

And the next thing, in the woods,

The catkins in their hoods

Of fur and silk will stand,

A sturdy little band.

And the tassels soft and fine

Of the hazel will untwine,

And the elder-branches show

Their buds against the snow.

So, silently but swift,

Above the wintry drift,

The long days gain and gain,

Until, on hill and plain,

Once more and yet once more

Returning as before,

We see the bloom of birth

Make young again the earth.