In Early Spring: to my Sister

Darling, the wine-dark masses of our wood,
Under a travelling cloud surcharged with rain.
Have dim-green columned vistas, all imbued
With faint blue smoke from smouldering leaves that wane.
Or kindling glow :
But as I rove along the yielding grass
Fringing the river, lo ! my musing eyes.
With mild swift force made captive as they pass,
Gladden, as when with sense of sweet surprise
A voice we know
Of one we love returning unaware,
Longed for, not looked for, summons like a dream ;
So seems yon willow touched with verdure rare.
Slanting slim lines of green rain, in a gleam
Of fleeting glow,
Athwart her stem ; another willow nigh
Springs foliaged fountainlike and falls on high,
Evanishing in drifts of spray,
Green exhalation thinned away,
While faint airs blow.
Some pensile leaves play wanton with the river,
And graze each mantling ripple as it slides
Soft, shadow-bosomed, with a dainty shiver
Kissing the leaf, ere swooning it subsides !
Yet hearken ! now
In tones renewed the dear unboded call
Of nearing Spring enchants my willing ear ;
For as I pass, now furtive-breathed, now clear,
Coos the woodpigeon with a plaintive fall !
Behold a flow
Of yellow daffodil salutes my sight :
First smile of Nature waking from the night
Of deadly winter; fluent among boughs
Winds in and out bird-music, to arouse
Each budding bough ;
For still the bronzy tracery so fine
Reveals amid their rich perplexity
Many a brown bird in the swift sunshine
Startling and fading ; when he dips to fly
You well may know.
Noting on intervals of emerald floors
In tender subtle mysteries of grass
His shadow, while he buoyant sinks and soars.
Now faint exhaling, now imbibing mass.
Still faint and low
Spring's witching voice, still hesitating, strewn
On desert distances : she moves in sleep
With eyes half open : wake her not so soon !
While Winter lowers.may she laugh and leap.
Whose breath of snow
She shrinking feels? to me it seems the Spring,
O darling sister on thy bed of pain !
Pauses for thee, her very queen, to bring
Thine own eternal joyance to sustain
Her, timid doe.
With calm assurance from thy spirit's home ;
Even as young maids on either hand deploy.
Lining a bride's path, waiting till she come,
Then follow in the wake of her full joy.
Swelling its flow :
So, darling, come ! the year but waits for thee :
Dislustred else the sunniest Spring for me !
Our Springs were wont to gather confidence,
Sounding thine eyes for sweet serenity ;
Skies, leaves and flowers, still wait to draw it hence ;
Linger not now !

Kew, 1870.