Poems (Proctor)/Easter Bells

by Edna Dean Proctor

EASTER BELLS.

Lent was dreary and late that year;
 April to May was going;
But the loitering moon refused to round,
 And the wild south-east was blowing.

Day by day, from my window high,
 I watched, a lonely warder,
For a building bird in the garden-trees
 Or a flower in the sheltered border.

But I only heard the chilly rain
 On the roof of my chamber beating,
Or the wild sea-wind to the tossing boughs
 Its wail of wreck repeating;

And said, "Ah me! 'tis a weary world
 This cheerless April weather;
The beautiful things will droop and die,
 Blossom and bird together."

At last the storm was spent. I slept,
 Lulled by the tired wind's sighing,—
To wake at morn with the sunshine full
 On floor and garden lying;

And lo! the hyacinth buds were blown;
 A robin was blithely singing;
The cherry-blooms by the wall were white,
 And the Easter bells were ringing!

It was long ago, but the memory lives;
 And in all life's Lenten sorrows,
When tempests of grief and trouble beat
 And I dread the dark to-morrows,

I think of the garden after the rain;
 And hope to my heart comes singing,
"At morn the cherry-blooms will be white,
 And the Easter bells be ringing!"