Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE BUSH-SPARROW, by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN Poet's Biography First Line: Ere wild-haws, looming in the glooms Last Line: She comes, the darling duchess, spring!' Subject(s): Spring | ||||||||
I ERE wild-haws, looming in the glooms, Build bolted drifts of breezy blooms; And in the whistling hollow there The red-bud bends, as brown and bare As buxom Roxy's up-stripped arm; From some gray hickory or larch, Sighed o'er the sodden meads of March, The sad heart thrills and reddens warm To hear you braving the rough storm, Frail courier of green-gathering powers; Rebelling sap in trees and flowers; Love's minister come heralding -- O sweet saint-voice among bleak bowers! O brown-red pursuivant of Spring! II 'Moan' sob the woodland waters still Down bloomless ledges of the hill; And gray, gaunt clouds like harpies hang In harpy heavens, and swoop and clang Sharp beaks and talons of the wind: Black scowl the forests, and unkind The far fields as the near: while song Seems murdered and all beauty wrong. One weak frog only in the thaw Of spawny pools wakes cold and raw, Expires a melancholy bass And stops as if bewildered: then Along the frowning wood again, Flung in the thin wind's vulture face, From woolly tassels of the proud, Red-bannered maples, long and loud, 'The Spring is come! is here! her Grace! her Grace!' III 'Her Grace, the Spring! her Grace! her Grace! Climbs, beautiful and sunny browed, Up, up the kindling hills and wakes Blue berries in the berry brakes: With fragrant flakes, that blow and bleach, Deep-powders smothered quince and peach: Eyes dogwoods with a thousand eyes; Teaches each sod how to be wise With twenty wildflowers to one weed, And kisses germs that they may seed. In purest purple and sweet white Treads up the happier hills of light, Bloom, cloudy-borne, song in her hair And balm and beam of odorous air. Winds, her retainers; and the rains Her yeomen strong that sweep the plains: Her scarlet knights of dawn, and gold Of eve, her panoply unfold: Her herald tabarded behold! Awake to greet! prepare to sing! She comes, the darling Duchess, Spring!' | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPRING LEMONADE by TONY HOAGLAND A SPRING SONG by LYMAN WHITNEY ALLEN SPRING'S RETURN by GEORGE LAWRENCE ANDREWS ODE TO SPRING by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD ODE TO SPRING by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD SPRING FLOODS by MAURICE BARING SPRING IN WINTER by CHARLOTTE FISKE BATES SPRING ON THE PRAIRIE by HERBERT BATES THE FARMER'S BOY: SPRING by ROBERT BLOOMFIELD KU KLUX by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN |
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