Poems (Chilton, 1885)/A May Morning
A May Morning
The cat-bird sings in the tangled bush That loads the air with its sweet perfume,And the murmuring bees hide all the day In the snowy tents of the aldler's bloom:The silent thrush with a rapid wing Darts through the sunlit, leafy screen,Or tilts the branches that over the brook Wave their tassels of tender green.
From yon lone cottage hard by the wood Comes the murmur of pleasant talk;High over-head in the stainless blue Sails the silent and watchful hawk.The distant river asleep in the sun, Lies in a calm, unrippled rest,While a single sail, like a snowy gull, Lazily floats on its placid breast.
Come ye who toil in the dusty town, Come, and your souls in this sunshine steep;See how the earth at the touch of Spring Hath waked from her long and wintry sleep.O that your walls of brick could give back The sun like yonder hill-side green,In billows of dazling golden light, With cool and shadowy gulfs between!