Andrew Macphail (1864–1938)

BELOVED, Spring is come! Do you not hear

The strong South wind’s deep breathing in the trees?

—With all the lusty joy of youth he frees

Their limbs from bondage of the winter drear,—

Nor yet the bird notes rising high and clear

Above the merry whistling of the breeze?

Will you not answer, if I join with these

My cry of longing and of love most dear?

Should I but nestle close beside the mound

This night, with ear alert, the grave might yield

Unto the Spring and Love some whispered sound,

That all this weary time you only dreamed.

When snows of winter levelled all the field,

O God, how very far away you seemed.