To Jane: The Invitation

Best and brightest, come away!Fairer far than this fair Day,Which, like thee to those in sorrow,Comes to bid a sweet good-morrowTo the rough Year just awake5In its cradle on the brake.The brightest hour of unborn Spring,Through the winter wandering,Found, it seems, the halcyon MornTo hoar February born,10Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,It kissed the forehead of the Earth,And smiled upon the silent sea,And bade the frozen streams be free,And waked to music all their fountains,15And breathed upon the frozen mountains,And like a prophetess of MayStrewed flowers upon the barren way,Making the wintry world appearLike one on whom thou smilest, dear.20

Away, away, from men and towns,To the wild wood and the downs--To the silent wildernessWhere the soul need not repressIts music lest it should not find25An echo in another's mind,While the touch of Nature's artHarmonizes heart to heart.I leave this notice on my doorFor each accustomed visitor:--30'I am gone into the fieldsTo take what this sweet hour yields;--Reflection, you may come to-morrow,Sit by the fireside with Sorrow.--You with the unpaid bill, Despair,--35You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care,--I will pay you in the grave,--Death will listen to your stave.Expectation too, be off!To-day is for itself enough;40Hope, in pity mock not WoeWith smiles, nor follow where I go;Long having lived on thy sweet food,At length I find one moment's goodAfter long pain--with all your love,45This you never told me of.'

Radiant Sister of the Day,Awake! arise! and come away!To the wild woods and the plains,And the pools where winter rains50Image all their roof of leaves,Where the pine its garland weavesOf sapless green and ivy dunRound stems that never kiss the sun;Where the lawns and pastures be,55And the sandhills of the sea;--Where the melting hoar-frost wetsThe daisy-star that never sets,And wind-flowers, and violets,Which yet join not scent to hue,60Crown the pale year weak and new;When the night is left behindIn the deep east, dun and blind,And the blue noon is over us,And the multitudinous65Billows murmur at our feet,Where the earth and ocean meet,And all things seem only oneIn the universal sun.