The poets who write in the magazines
Have pitched their tents amid sylvan scenes;
Treading with joy in their lazy lay
The primrose path of the woodland way,
They always stop on the road to sing
Of “the balmy breeze of awakening Spring.”
I know that breeze of the lilting line—
That breeze is a very old friend of mine;
That it takes bards in, need cause no surprise—
For at throwing dust into people’s eyes,
Facile princeps and also king
Is “the balmy breeze of awakening Spring.”
It’s the “poet” that’s balmy, and not the breeze,
When he sings in praise of our English “bise,”
The wind that blows ’neath the cold gray sky,
That stabs the chest and inflames the eye;
It is death that hovers with sable wing
On “the balmy breeze of awakening Spring.”
I’d sing the song that this breeze deserves,
But, alas! I’ve “liver” and also “nerves;”
Sciatica racks me day and night,
And I haven’t a bronchial tube that’s right;
And the fiend that all these woes doth bring
Is “the balmy breeze of awakening Spring.”