Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FOOTSTEPS OF PROSERPINE: 6. SPRING DELAYED, by NEWMAN HOWARD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FOOTSTEPS OF PROSERPINE: 6. SPRING DELAYED, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O why do you tarry so long, spring?
Last Line: The breath and the raiment of god!
Subject(s): Beauty; Life; Spring; Winter


O WHY do you tarry so long, Spring?
The almond has budded and blown;
The lark will grow tired of her song, Spring,
The yaffel laugh turn to a moan.

The fans of the alders unfurl, Spring;
The osiers grow silky and sleek, --
More gold than the locks of a girl, Spring,
More soft than the down on her cheek.

They wither and droop while you linger;
The marybuds open and close;
The frost, with the touch of his finger,
Has numbed the red lips of the rose.

Come waft o'er the waves of our seas, Spring!
We sigh for the sound of your feet!
Come couch in our buttercup leas, Spring!
No glades in the world are so sweet,

No meadows so green in the South, Spring!
Yet why are you lingering there?
The bloom and the laugh on your mouth, Spring,
The sun in the threads of your hair.

You tarry, and Winter lies whining,
A mendicant, naked and gray,
In dead leaves and snow-drifts reclining,
Gaunt, palsied, and plashed with the clay;

And only your coming delivers
Our porch from the curse of the crone:
You enter, he mumbles and shivers,
And stretches lank limbs, and is gone!

And kneedeep in kingcup and clover
We wander, and dream, while you sing
The song of a bride to her lover:
For what but a bride are you, Spring? --

A wench in warm virginal vesture,
A blush in a shimmer of blonde,
Light-footed, and lissom of gesture,
Swan-bosomed, capricious, and fond:

Nay, sister of youth and of strife, Spring!
The spirit that lurks in the clod
Of Love and of Beauty and Life, Spring!
The breath and the raiment of God!





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