It shall be as it hath been.
All the world is glad and green-
Hush! Ah, hush! There cannot be
April now for you and me.


Put your finger on the lips
Of your soul; the wild rain drips;
The wind goes diving down the sea;
Tell the wind, but tell not me.


Yet if I had aught to tell,
High as heaven, or deep as hell,
Bent the fates awry or fit,
I would find a word for it.


Oh, words that neither sea nor land
Can lift their ears to understand!
Wild words, as dumb as death or fear,
I dare to die, but not to hear!

More verses by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward