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Poems (Chilton, 1885)/A May Morning

From Wikisource

An earlier version of this poem, entitled "June Morning", appeared in The Knickerbocker vol. 42, no. 4 (October 1853), p. 438

4673259PoemsPoems1885Robert S. Chilton

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!