You come not with the dainty air and grace,
And wreathing smiles, that clothe the Eastern season—
A maiden lithe of form, and fair of face,
To wheedle lovers from the ranks of reason:
You do not come in riots of pink lace,
For Western bards to perpetrate a wheeze on,
And cover, in a frenzy, page on page
With all the rhymer’s threadbare persiflage.
We seek in vain the fern-wreaths on your gown,
The dew-drop jewels in your carpet spreading—
Those pæans from the bush-land and the town,
Suggestive, quaintly, of a fairy wedding:
We wait expectantly—then truckle down
To sleep on bags—no rose leaves for our bedding!
And wring our hands, and weep like anything ...
There is no copy in a Western Spring.
For here you are, thus early soiled and tanned,
A sorry subject for a verse creator;
A damned inverted pewter in your hand,
Some draggled immortelles around your crater:
They speak, somehow, of drought, and dust, and sand,
And summer’s hell, that’s waiting for us later,
And flies innumerable, and small black ants,
And several thousand other irritants.
I do not like your rude, precocious stare;
Your torrid temperature is disconcerting;
And, Lord! the frowsy draperies you wear
Might well be made of gunnybags, or shirting;
And one could bet you never learned the rare
And subtle art of scientific flirting—
To set the tune, and lead the boys a dance,
Through many a labyrinth of sweet romance.
Yet still our own! though scoffers mock and mar;
And at your feet I lay this sapless jingle,
That, if too dry, may moisten at the bar
Where sundry goddesses and groundlings mingle—
Where modest Martha’s conduct grows bizarre,
And Virtue’s self is often short a shingle:
And soaked, thus, in the dregs of beer and wine,
Once more I shy the garland at your shrine!
Yet, after all, the joyous feet of Spring
Trip to the tune the pipes of Pan are playing
In every clime where Youth may have its fling,
And Love, unweighted by life’s cares, goes straying.
Look not where last year’s rose lies withering!
Heed not the pessimistic asses braying!
But fetch your gauds, and place them on Her brow—
Life’s best delusion is beside you now.
[Decoration: Man leading camel]