Poems (Blind)/Echoes of Spring/II.

by Mathilde Blind

II.

 Oft on the gleaming April days,When skies are soft, and winds are warm,And in the air a subtle charm, And on the hill a flight of rays;

 When silver clouds slide through the blue,Spreading a pure, transparent wing,And all the budding branches ring With blithesome birds, that warbling woo;

 Beneath a pear tree's shade I lay,Deep bedded in the long thick grass,And heard the twitt'ring swallow pass, And grasshoppers at endless play.

 I knew, though flowers mine eyes did screen,That butterflies danced in the light;For, breaking sunbeams in their flight, They flashed their shadows on the green.

 And gazing up, in dreamful ease,Where quiv'ring frail on shivery sprays,The blossoms mix a milky maze, What hum of golden-girted bees!

 So lily-white, the tree, behold,Seems set on fire by burnished lights,And shoal on honeying shoal alights, And turns the snowy boughs to gold.

 Thus on my spirit-music-fraught,Burst swarms of glimm'ring melodies,And like the yellow-banded bees, Make honey of my flutt'ring thought.