Poems (Radford)/In Spring

by Dollie Radford

For works with similar titles, see In Spring.

In Spring

The land is full of blossom, in the plain
 The flowering orchards lie,
As lightly as a mist that brings the rain
 Across the morning sky,
As clouds that float at sunrise from the hills,
Until the valley with their glory fills,
   Again, again,
 The Spring that comes in vain.

Along the green recesses of the air,
 The rapture of her birth,
Is flowing as a stream that seeks to bear
 All sweetness of the earth,
Through woods that hold her myriad flowers and leaves,
Such joy she has, she hears not one who grieves,
   She has no care
 The Spring who may not spare.

I have no place among her bowers and trees,
 So soon her choice was done,
How shall I bear sweet company with these,
 If love may not be won;
Oh sun and shade that fill each leafy deep,
In all the faith and promise that you keep
   Send down some case,
 Some healing in your breeze.

I falter in your world so fair and new,
 Beneath your laden boughs,
Oh joyous Spring, whose careless heart is true
 To nought but happy vows,
Oh, Spring, who have no memory for tears,
For all the waste of joy through all the years,
   So few, so few,
 Your gifts that are my due.

Beyond your woods and streams my cry awakes,
 Beyond your seas and strands,
Its pain shall pierce some lover's heart that breaks
 For love in future lands,
And all my passion in his eyes shall shine,
And if the song he sings be his or mine,
   He shall not make
 One more for his dove's sake.

Across denying Heaven my song shall go,
 Full burdened with my need,
And in some lover's veins my love shall flow,
 My love that shall be freed;
My longing shall so melt into his sigh,
And tn his prayer my own so deep shall lie,
   No word shall show
 If it be his or no.

Across the years my thought in his shall rest,
 And he shall guard it well,
As mine to his tn joy were newly prest
 My heart in his shall dwell,
In dreams that hang upon the edge of night,
That float between the darkness and the light;
   Oh tireless quest,
 Oh search, so strangely blest.

So near, so near, the one beloved face
 That I may never see,
So wise, so sure, across the vasty space,
 The eyes that pity me;
Oh friend, oh lover, whom I may not find,
Oh Spring, whose great refusals hold and bind,
   I claim my place
 Oh Spring, in all your grace.