And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles
On the dewy earth that smiles in his ray
On the leaping waters and gay young isles;
Ay, look, and he'll smile thy gloom away.

THE RETURN OF SPRING

BY BAYARD TAYLOR

A SPIRIT of beauty walks the hills,

A spirit of love the plain;

The shadows are bright, and the sunshine fills The air with a diamond rain!

Before my vision the glories swim,

To the dance of a tune unheard:

Is an angel singing where woods are dim,

Or is it an amorous bird?

Is it a spike of azure flowers,
Deep in the meadows seen,

Or is it the peacock's neck that towers
Out of the spangled green?

Is a white dove glancing across the blue,
Or an opal taking wing?

For my soul is dazzled through and through,
With the splendor of the Spring.

A SPRING SONG

ANONYMOUS

OLD Mother Earth woke up from her sleep,
And found she was cold and bare;
The winter was over, the spring was near,
And she had not a dress to wear.
"Alas!" she sighed, with great dismay,
"Oh, where shall I get my clothes?

There's not a place to buy a suit,

And a dressmaker no one knows."

"I'll make you a dress," said the springing grass, Just looking above the ground,

"A dress of green of the loveliest sheen,

To cover you all around."

"And we," said the dandelions gay,

"Will dot it with yellow bright."

"I'll make it a fringe," said forget-me-not,

"Of blue, very soft and light."

"We'll embroider the front," said the violets,

"With a lovely purple hue."

"And we," said the roses, "will make you a crown

Of red, jeweled over with dew."

"And we'll be your gems," said a voice from the shade,

Where the ladies' ear-drops live"Orange is the color for any queen

And the best we have to give."

Old Mother Earth was thankful and glad,

As she put on her dress so gay;

And that is the reason, my little ones,
She is looking so lovely to-day.

SPRING IN THE SOUTH*

BY HENRY VAN DYKE

Now in the oak the sap of life is welling,
Tho' to the bough the rusty leafage clings;
Now on the elm the misty buds are swelling,
See how the pine-wood grows alive with wings;
Blue-jays fluttering, yodeling and crying,

Meadow-larks sailing low above the faded grass,
Red-birds whistling clear, silent robins flying
Who has waked the birds up? What has come
to pass?

Last year's cotton-plants, desolately bowing,
Tremble in the March-wind, ragged and forlorn;
Red are the hillsides of the early plowing,
Gray are the lowlands, waiting for the corn.
Earth seems asleep still, but she's only feigning;
Deep in her bosom thrills a sweet unrest.
Look where the jasmine lavishly is raining
Jove's golden shower into Danaë's breast!

*From "Music and other Poems," copyright, 1904, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

Now on the plum the snowy bloom is sifted,
Now on the peach the glory of the rose,
Over the hills a tender haze is drifted,

Full to the brim the yellow river flows.
Dark cypress boughs with vivid jewels glisten,
Greener than emeralds shining in the sun.

Who has wrought the magic? Listen, sweetheart, listen!

The mocking-bird is singing Spring has begun.

Hark, in his song no tremor of misgiving!

All of his heart he pours into his lay
"Love, love, love, and pure delight of living:
Winter is forgotten: here's a happy day!"
Fair in your face I read the flowery presage,
Snowy on your brow and rosy on your mouth:
Sweet in your voice I hear the season's message
Love, love, love, and Spring in the South!

THE SPRING

BY JAMES SPEED

HAVE you ever gone into the woods on an earlyday, a day when the wind was still cold, but in the south? One of those days when the smile of the sun and the soft noise of the wind make you know in some vague way that spring is coming? If you have not, try it. Go sit at the base of some old man of the woods whose sides are gray and green with clinging lichens

and mosses and whose head shows the fight with winter storms and heavy sleets. Put your head against his side, there is no sound; drop your head to the ground, and yet no sound; but you know that he, too, has heard the summons to awake; that spring is coming. Somehow you feel as you see the tender green veiling the lightest twigs that the trees are vitally alive.

As the birds have their songs to tell of their love, so the trees and the plants put forth their joy at the marriage time by their odors which float everywhere and make the spring air a thing to be remembered. Have you ever been through the woods when the wild grape vines were a mass of bloom? Was not their odor as suggestive in a subtle way as the song of the birds? So think of the trees, as people who live in a little different world, but still part of the throbbing life which is manifest everywhere.

AN INVITATION TO THE COUNTRY
BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

ALREADY, close by our summer dwelling,
The Easter sparrow repeats her song;
A merry warbler, she chides the blossoms -
The idle blossoms that sleep so long.

The bluebird chants, from the elm's long branches,
A hymn to welcome the budding year.

The south wind wanders from field to forest,
And softly whispers, "The spring is here."