The Death of Winter
When April with her wild blue eye
Comes dancing over the grass,
And all the crimson buds so shy
Peep out to see her pass;
As lightly she loosens her showery locks
And flutters her rainy wings;
Laughingly stoops
To the glass of the stream,
And loosens and loops
Her hair by the gleam,
While all the young villagers blithe as the flocks
Go frolicking round in rings; -
Then Winter, he who tamed the fly,
Turns on his back and prepares to die,
For he cannot live longer under the sky.
Down the valleys glittering green,
Down from the hills in snowy rills,
He melts between the border sheen
And leaps the flowery verges!
He cannot choose but brighten their hues,
And tho’ he would creep, he fain must leap,
For the quick Spring spirit urges.
Down the vale and down the dale
He leaps and lights, till his moments fail,
Buried in blossoms red and pale,
While the sweet birds sing his dirges!
O Winter! I’d live that life of thine,
With a frosty brow and an icicle tongue,
And never a song my whole life long, -
Were such delicious burial mine!
To die and be buried, and so remain
A wandering brook in April’s train,
Fixing my dying eyes for aye
On the dawning brows of maiden May.
