Katharine Lee Bates: Verses about Spring

THE fragrant air is full of down,
Of floating, fleecy things
From some forgotten fairy town
Where all the folk wear wings.
Or else the snowflakes, soft arrayed
In dainty suits of lace,
Have ventured back in masquerade,
Spring's festival to grace.
Or these, perchance, are fleets of fluff,
Laden with rainbow seeds,
That count their cargo rich enough
Though all its wealth be weeds.
Or come they from the golden trees,
Where dancing blossoms were,
That now are drifting on the breeze,
Sweet ghosts of gossamer?

WHAT song is in the sap of this brave oak-tree
That to the north-star faces,
Ravened each June by caterpillar masses
Till all its leaves are laces,
Poor shreds whose very shadow grieves the grasses?
I leave it then, but roses and the smoke-tree
Look from the lawn below it
And watch for that gold witch, Midsummer Weather,
With magic breath to blow it
Free of its foes, whose wings make mirth together.
Vital as Igdrasil, immortal folk-tree,
When I return, its losses
Are all restored, its fresh, soft foliage gleaming
With peach and citron glosses,
A Druid that is never done with dreaming.

SHRUNKEN little bodies, pallid baby faces,
Eyes of staring terror, innocence defiled,
Tiny bones that strew the sand of silent places,
— This upon our own star where Jesus was a child.
Broken buds of April, is there any garden
Where they yet may blossom, comforted of sun,
While their sad Creator bows to ask their pardon
For the life He gave them, life and death in one?
Spared by steel and hunger, still shall horror blazon
Those white and tender spirits with anguish unforgot;
Half a century hence the haggard look shall gaze on
The outrage of a mother, shall see a grandsire shot.
Man who wings the azure, lassoes the hoof sparkling,
Fire-maned steeds of glory and binds them to his car,
Cannot man whose searchlight leaves no horizon darkling
Safeguard little children upon our golden star?

'The faieries gave him the propertie of the Thracian stone; for who toucheth it is exempted from griefe.'
The fairies to his cradle came to play their fairy part,
Their footsteps like the laughter of a leaf;
They touched him with the Thracian stone that setteth free the heart
—O dream-enchanted, singing heart!—forever free from grief.
The wind it could not blow a way that failed to please him well;
Beyond the rain he saw the March skies blue
With hope of April violets; he cast his fairy spell
Over our flawed and tarnished world, creating all things new.
He bore the burden of his day, the burden and the heat,
As blithely as a seagull breasts the gale,
Glorying that God should trust his strength. The color of ripe wheat
Was on his life when it was flung beneath pain's threshing-flail.
He fronted that grim challenge like some resplendent knight
Who rides against foul foes of fen and wood;
With ringing song of onset, his spirit, hero bright,
Went tilting with a sunbeam against the dragon brood.
Then dusky shapes stole on him, Queen of the Quaking Isle,
Queens of the Land of Longing and the Waste;
He bowed him to their bidding with a secret in his smile;
He quaffed their bitter cups that left ambrosia on the taste.
Last came the King of Terrors, and lo! his iron crown
Had twinkled to a silver fairy-cap;
Like two old friends they took the road to Love-and-Beauty town,
That's here and there and everywhere on all the starry map.