Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917.
Spring in TownWilliam Cullen Bryant
T
Waiting for May to call its violets forth,
And June its roses—showers and sunshine bring,
Slowly, the deeping verdure o’er the earth;
To put their foliage out, the woods are slack,
And one by one the singing-birds come back.
Comes earlier. Let a mild and sunny day,
Such as full often, for a few bright hours,
Breathes through the sky of March the airs of May,
Shine on our roofs and chase the wintry gloom—
And lo! our borders glow with sudden bloom.
Gorgeous as are a rivulet’s banks in June,
That overhung with blossoms, through its glen,
Slides soft away beneath the sunny noon,
And they who search the untrodden wood for flowers
Meet in its depths no lovelier ones than ours.
Or the dark drop that on the pansy lies,
And foreheads, white, as when in clusters set,
The anemones by forest mountains rise;
And the spring-beauty boasts no tenderer streak
Than the soft red on many a youthful cheek.
Locks that the lucky Vignardonne has curled,
Thrice happy man! whose trade it is to buy,
And bake, and braid those love-knots of the world;
Who curls of every glossy colour keepest,
And sellest, it is said, the blackest cheapest.
Send the dark locks with which their brows are dressed,
And Gascon lasses, from their jetty braids,
Crop half, to buy a riband for the rest;
But the fresh Norman girls their tresses spare,
And the Dutch damsel keeps her flaxen hair.
To see her locks of an unlovely hue,
Frouzy or thin, for liberal art shall give
Such piles of curls as nature never knew.
Eve with her veil of tresses, at the sight
Had blushed, outdone, and owned herself a fright.
Like notes of woodbirds, and where’er the eye
Threads the long way, plumes wave, and twinkling feet
Fall light, as hastes that crowd of beauty by.
The ostrich, hurrying o’er the desert space,
Scarce bore those tossing plumes with fleeter pace.
Is theirs, but a light step of freest grace,
Light as Camilla’s o’er the unbent corn;—
A step that speaks the spirit of the place,
Since Quiet, meek old dame, was driven away
To Sing Sing and the shores of Tappan bay.
For steeds or footmen now? ye cannot show
Fair face, and dazzling dress, and graceful air,
And last edition of the shape! Ah, no,
These sights are for the earth and open sky,
And your loud wheels unheeded rattle by.