When the snow was deep on the flower-beds,
And the sleet was caked on the brier;
When the frost was down in the brown bulbs' heads,
And the ways were clogged with mire;
When the wind to syringa and bare rose-tree
Brought the phantoms of vanished flowers,
And the days were sorry as sorry could be,
And Time limped cursing his fardle of hours:
Heigho! had I not a book and the logs?
And I swear that I wasn't mistaken,
But I heard the frogs croaking in far-off bogs,
And the brush-sparrow's song in the braken.
And I strolled by paths which the Springtide knew,
In her mossy dells, by her ferny passes,
Where the ground was holy with flowers and dew,
And the insect life in the grasses.
And I knew the Spring as a lover who knows
His sweetheart, to whom he has given
A kiss on the cheek that warmed its white rose,
In her eyes brought the laughter of heaven.
For a poem I'd read, a simple thing,
A little lyric that had the power
To make the brush-sparrow come and sing,
And the winter woodlands flower.