Poems (Sharpless)/A Hillside Spring
A HILLSIDE SPRING
I know a tiny hillside spring, Hidden among the grasses;Its water is the sweetest thing That mortal lips e'er passes.
And when the woods are all astir With life-sap freshly flowing;And you may feel Spring's harbinger In every soft wind blowing;
It wakens in a daintier bed Than Adonais lay in;Blue violets around it spread Young ferns for it to stray in.
Among the tangled mat of green In the lush wealth of summer,Close bending down, my spring I've seen, And heard its happy murmur.
When falls the dreamy Autumn haze Thro' which the wood's bright gloryGlows like a mighty altar's blaze In some old Eastern story,—
I've heard its crooning voice beneath The "woodland gold's" wild flutter,As tho' it knew of sleep and death, Sweet things it could not utter.
Hearts like my spring sometimes we find In this mixed world of ours;To dazzling ambitions blind, Seeking life's humble flowers,
Traced by the blessings that they bring Where'er their footstep passes;As I have found my hillside spring Betrayed by greener grasses.