Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833–1908)

HAD I, my love declared, the tireless wing

That wafts the swallow to her northern skies,

I would not, sheer within the rich surprise

Of full-blown Summer, like the swallow, fling

My coyer being; but would follow Spring,

Melodious consort, as she daily flies,

Apace with suns that o’er new woodlands rise

Each morn—with rains her gentler stages bring.

My pinions should beat music with her own;

Her smiles and odors should delight me ever,

Gliding, with measured progress, from the zone

Where golden seas receive the mighty river,

Unto yon lichened cliffs, whose ridges sever

Our Norseland from the Arctic surge’s moan.