March
Now I know that Spring will come again,Perhaps to-morrow: however late I've patienceAfter this night following on such a day.
While still my temples ached from the cold burningOf hail and wind, and still the primrosesTorn by the hail were covered up in it,The sun filled earth and heaven with a great lightAnd a tenderness, almost warmth, where the haildripped,As if the mighty sun wept tears of joy.But 'twas too late for warmth. The sunset piledMountains on mountains of snow and ice in thewest:Somewhere among their folds the wind was lost,And yet 'twas cold, and though I knew thatSpringWould come again, I knew it had not come,That it was lost too in those mountains chill.
What did the thrushes know? Rain, snow, sleet,hail,Had kept them quiet as the primroses.They had but an hour to sing. On boughs theysang,On gates, on ground; they sang while theychanged perchesAnd while they fought, if they remembered tofight:So earnest were they to pack into that hourTheir unwilling hoard of song before the moonGrew brighter than the clouds. Then 'twasno timeFor singing merely. So they could keep off silenceAnd night, they cared not what they sang orscreamed;Whether 'twas hoarse or sweet or fierce or soft;And to me all was sweet: they could do no wrong.Something they knew--I also, while they sangAnd after. Not till night had half its starsAnd never a cloud, was I aware of silenceStained with all that hour's songs, a silenceSaying that Spring returns, perhaps to-morrow.
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