Spring

Milly Jourdain

The gentle earth is waking from her sleep

And mist of early dawn is on the grass,

When through the apples' wintry boughs I see

Beyond the wall a mass of buildings rise.

O could these helpless hands but make a space

To see the distant hills and misty fields,

Where blackbirds sing among the nearer trees,

Like sunlit rivers running over stones.

The earth is stirring in her winter sleep,

Touching the secret life in waking things,

Till flowering trees and singing birds and grass

Shall make the country fresh with youth and hope.

Oh! all this bursting sweetness of the Spring,

And softly pushing life of little things,

And coloured crocus, and the faint fresh scents,

Are so much greater than my heart's dry pain.

Yet still my heart's uneasy when I think

The earth is stirring and I cannot stir,

But only watch the life that surges past,

And lie quite still, and hear the far off sounds.