Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
III. The SeasonsSpring in Carolina
Henry Timrod (18281867)S
Which dwells with all things fair,
Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain,
Is with us once again.
Its fragrant lamps, and turns
Into a royal court with green festoons
The banks of dark lagoons.
The blood is all aglee,
And there ’s a look about the leafless bowers
As if they dreamed of flowers.
Of Winter in the land,
Save where the maple reddens on the lawn,
Flushed by the season’s dawn;
That age to childhood bind,
The elm puts on, as if in Nature’s scorn,
The brown of autumn corn.
That, not a span below,
A thousand germs are groping through the gloom,
And soon will burst their tomb.
The crocus breaking earth;
And near the snowdrop’s tender white and green,
The violet in its screen.
Along the budding grass,
And weeks go by, before the enamored South
Shall kiss the rose’s mouth.
In the sweet airs of morn;
One almost looks to see the very street
Grow purple at his feet.
And brings, you know not why,
A feeling as when eager crowds await
Before a palace gate
If from a beech’s heart,
A blue-eyed Dryad, stepping forth, should say,
“Behold me! I am May!”