Spring: May
Come out o’ door, ’tis Spring! ’tis May
The trees be green, the vields be gay;
The weather’s warm, the winter blast,
Wi’ all his train o’ clouds, is past;
The zun do rise while vo’k do sleep,
To teaeke a higher daily zweep,
Wi’ cloudless feaece a-flingen down
His sparklen light upon the groun’.
The air’s a-streamen soft,—come drow
The windor open; let it blow
In drough the house, where vire, an’ door
A-shut, kept out the cwold avore.
Come, let the vew dull embers die,
An’ come below the open sky;
An’ wear your best, vor fear the groun’
In colours gay mid sheaeme your gown:
An’ goo an’ rig wi’ me a mile
Or two up over geaete an’ stile,
Drough zunny parrocks that do leaed,
Wi’ crooked hedges, to the meaed,
Where elems high, in steaetely ranks,
Do rise vrom yollow cowslip-banks,
An’ birds do twitter vrom the spray
O’ bushes deck’d wi’ snow-white may;
An’ gil’cups, wi’ the deaeisy bed,
Be under ev’ry step you tread.
We’ll wind up roun’ the hill, an’ look
All down the thickly-timber’d nook,
Out where the squier’s house do show
His grey-wall’d peaks up drough the row
O’ sheaedy elems, where the rook
Do build her nest; an’ where the brook
Do creep along the meaeds, an’ lie
To catch the brightness o’ the sky;
An’ cows, in water to their knees,
Do stan’ a-whisken off the vlees.
Mother o’ blossoms, and ov all
That’s feaeir a-yield vrom Spring till Fall,
The gookoo over white-weaev’d seas
Do come to zing in thy green trees,
An’ buttervlees, in giddy flight,
Do gleaem the mwost by thy gay light
Oh! when, at last, my fleshly eyes
Shall shut upon the vields an’ skies,
Mid zummer’s zunny days be gone,
An’ winter’s clouds be comen on:
Nor mid I draw upon the e’th,
O’ thy sweet air my leaetest breath;
Alassen I mid want to stay
Behine’ for thee, O flow’ry May!
Other works by William Barnes...
