The ghost of Winter stalks amidst the boughs
Of Spring and drags along his icy shroud;
The corn flowers and the wheat, with broken vows,
Are now beneath the storm untimely bowed.
O Winter, thou wert buried on the hills;
Thine epitaph was written with melted snow;
Thy skeleton is in the barren rills,
Where once thy silvery life-blood used to flow.
Why visitest the glimpses of the sun
So soon, what message bring’st thou from the dead?
Why rudely interrupt the children’s fun
And havoc among the Guests of Summer spread?
Behold, the branches shiver, the blossoms fall;
The lilac in the leaves a shelter seeks;
Thy savage winds the Queen of May appal—
They pale with summer’s dust her rosy cheeks.
Withhold the solemn music of thy gale
Until the golden notes of Spring are spun;
The opera in the trees is but begun,
O, drown it not with thy benighted wail.
For thee May’s winged madonnas will not sing,
Nor in thy presence will they now appear:
Begone, that their sweet voices we may hear—
Begone, the world today belongs to Spring.