There is no bard in all the choir,

Not Homer’s self, the poet sire,

Wise Milton’s odes of pensive pleasure,

Or Shakspeare, whom no mind can measure,

Nor Collins’ verse of tender pain,

Nor Byron’s clarion of disdain,

Scott, the delight of generous boys,

Or Wordsworth, Pan’s recording voice, –

Not one of all can put in verse,

Or to this presence could rehearse,

The sights and voices ravishing

The boy knew on the hills in spring,

When pacing through the oaks he heard

Sharp queries of the sentry-bird,

The heavy grouse’s sudden whir,

The rattle of the kingfisher;

Saw bonfires of the harlot flies

In the lowland, when day dies;

Or marked, benighted and forlorn,

The first far signal-fire of morn.

These syllables that Nature spoke,

And the thoughts that in him woke,

Can adequately utter none

Save to his ear the wind-harp lone.

And best can teach its Delphian chord

How Nature to the soul is moored,

If once again that silent string,

As erst it wont, would thrill and ring.

Not long ago, at eventide,

It seemed, so listening, at my side

A window rose, and, to say sooth,

I looked forth on the fields of youth:

I saw fair boys bestriding steeds,

I knew their forms in fancy weeds,

Long, long concealed by sundering fates,

Mates of my youth, – yet not my mates,

Stronger and bolder far than I,

With grace, with genius, well attired,

And then as now from far admired,

Followed with love

They knew not of,

With passion cold and shy.

O joy, for what recoveries rare!

Renewed, I breathe Elysian air,

See youth’s glad mates in earliest bloom, –

Break not my dream, obtrusive tomb!

Or teach thou, Spring! the grand recoil

Of life resurgent from the soil

Wherein was dropped the mortal spoil.

Soft on the south-wind sleeps the haze:

So on thy broad mystic van

Lie the opal-colored days,

And waft the miracle to man.

Soothsayer of the eldest gods,

Repairer of what harms betide,

Revealer of the inmost powers

Prometheus proffered, Jove denied;

Disclosing treasures more than true,

Or in what far to-morrow due;

Speaking by the tongues of flowers,

By the ten-tongued laurel speaking,

Singing by the oriole songs,

Heart of bird the man’s heart seeking;

Whispering hints of treasure hid

Under Morn’s unlifted lid,

Islands looming just beyond

The dim horizon’s utmost bound; –

Who can, like thee, our rags upbraid,

Or taunt us with our hope decayed?

Or who like thee persuade,

Making the splendor of the air,

The morn and sparkling dew, a snare?

Or who resent

Thy genius, wiles, and blandishment?

There is no orator prevails

To beckon or persuade

Like thee the youth or maid:

Thy birds, thy songs, thy brooks, thy gales,

Thy blooms, thy kinds,

Thy echoes in the wilderness,

Soothe pain, and age, and love’s distress,

Fire fainting will, and build heroic minds.

For thou, O Spring! canst renovate

All that high God did first create.

Be still his arm and architect,