That the marble sleep is broken,

And a change has passed on things.

Beneath the calm, within the light,

A hid unruly appetite

Of swifter life, a surer hope,

Strains every sense to larger scope,

Impatient to anticipate

The halting steps of aged Fate.

Slow grows the palm, too slow the pearl:

When Nature falters, fain would zeal

Grasp the felloes of her wheel,

And grasping give the orbs another whirl.

Turn swiftlier round, O tardy ball!

And sun this frozen side,

Bring hither back the robin’s call,

Bring back the tulip’s pride.

Why chidest thou the tardy Spring?

The hardy bunting does not chide;

The blackbirds make the maples ring

With social cheer and jubilee;

The redwing flutes his o-ka-lee,

The robins know the melting snow;

The sparrow meek, prophetic-eyed,

Her nest beside the snow-drift weaves,

Secure the osier yet will hide

Her callow brood in mantling leaves;

And thou, by science all undone,

Why only must thy reason fail

To see the southing of the sun?

As we thaw frozen flesh with snow,

So Spring will not, foolish fond,

Mix polar night with tropic glow,

Nor cloy us with unshaded sun,

Nor wanton skip with bacchic dance,

But she has the temperance

Of the gods, whereof she is one, –

Masks her treasury of heat

Under east-winds crossed with sleet.

Plants and birds and humble creatures

Well accept her rule austere;

Titan-born, to hardy natures

Cold is genial and dear.

As Southern wrath to Northern right

Is but straw to anthracite;

As in the day of sacrifice,

When heroes piled the pyre,

The dismal Massachusetts ice

Burned more than others’ fire,

So Spring guards with surface cold

The garnered heat of ages old:

Hers to sow the seed of bread,

That man and all the kinds be fed;

And, when the sunlight fills the hours,

Dissolves the crust, displays the flowers.

The world rolls round, – mistrust it not, –

Befalls again what once befell;

All things return, both sphere and mote,

And I shall hear my bluebird’s note,

And dream the dream of Auburn dell.

When late I walked, in earlier days,

All was stiff and stark;

Knee-deep snows choked all the ways,

In the sky no spark;

Firm-braced I sought my ancient woods,

Struggling through the drifted roads;

The whited desert knew me not,

Snow-ridges masked each darling spot;

The summer dells, by genius haunted,

One arctic moon had disenchanted.

All the sweet secrets therein hid

By Fancy, ghastly spells undid.

Eldest mason, Frost, had piled,

With wicked ingenuity,

Swift cathedrals in the wild;

The piny hosts were sheeted ghosts

In the star-lit minster aisled.

I found no joy: the icy wind

Might rule the forest to his mind.

Who would freeze in frozen brakes?

Back to books and sheltered home,

And wood-fire flickering on the walls,

To hear, when, ’mid our talk and games,

Without the baffled north-wind calls.

But soft! a sultry morning breaks;

The cowslips make the brown brook gay;

A happier hour, a longer day.