Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SPRING AFTER THE WAR, by PHOEBE CARY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SPRING AFTER THE WAR, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Come, loveliest season of the year
Last Line: That wait their everlasting spring!
Subject(s): Spring


COME, loveliest season of the year,
And every quickened pulse shall beat,
Your footsteps in the grass to hear,
And feel your kisses, soft and sweet!

Come, and bestow new happiness
Upon the heart that hopeful thrills;
Sing with the lips that sing for bliss,
And laugh with children on the hills.

Lead dancing streams through meadows green,
And in the deep, deserted dells
Where poets love to walk unseen,
Plant flowers, with all delicious smells.

To humble cabins kindly go,
And train your shady vines, to creep
About the porches, cool and low,
Where mothers rock their babes to sleep.

But come with hushed and reverent tread,
And bring your gifts, most pure and sweet,
To hallowed places where our dead
Are sleeping underneath your feet.

There let the turf be lightly pressed,
And be your tears that softly flow
The sweetest, and the sacredest,
That ever pity shed for woe!

Scatter your holiest drop of dew,
Sing hymns of sacred melody;
And keep your choicest flowers to strew
The places where our heroes lie.

But most of all, go watch about
The unknown beds of such as sleep,
Where love can never find them out,
Nor faithful friendship come to weep.

Go where the ocean moans and cries,
For those her waters hide from sight;
And where the billows heave and rise,
Scatter the flowery foam-wreaths, white.

Aye, all your dearest treasures keep;
We shall not miss them, but instead
Will give them joyfully, to heap
The holy altars of our dead!

The poet from his wood-paths wild,
I know will take his sweetest flower,
The mother, singing to her child,
Will strip the green vines from her bower;

The poor man from his garden bed
The unpretending blooms will spare;
The lover give the roses red
He gathered for his darling's hair.

Yea, all thy gifts we love and prize
We ask thee reverently to bring,
And lay them on the darkened eyes,
That wait their everlasting spring!





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