Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
III. The SeasonsSpring
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (18091892)O sweet new-year, delaying long:
Thou dost expectant Nature wrong;
Delaying long, delay no more.
Thy sweetness from its proper place?
Can trouble live with April days,
Or sadness in the summer moons?
The little speedwell’s darling blue,
Deep tulips dashed with fiery dew,
Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire.
Delayest the sorrow in my blood,
That longs to burst a frozen bud,
And flood a fresher throat with song.
Now bourgeons every maze of quick
About the flowering squares, and thick
By ashen roots the violets blow.
The distance takes a lovelier hue,
And drowned in yonder living blue
The lark becomes a sightless song.
The flocks are whiter down the vale,
And milkier every milky sail
On winding stream or distant sea;
In yonder greening gleam, and fly
The happy birds, that change their sky
To build and brood, that live their lives
Spring wakens too; and my regret
Becomes an April violet,
And buds and blossoms like the rest.