Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SPRING BEHIND ASCUTNEY, by PERCY MACKAYE Poet's Biography First Line: When first the pussy-willow shows Last Line: Shall brand her image, bright with mutability. Alternate Author Name(s): Mackaye, Percy Wallace Subject(s): Ascutney, Vermont; Spring | ||||||||
When first the pussy-willow shows Her fairy muffs of gray, While still amid the poplar tree The blithe, familiar chicadee His morning suet gratis gets. ... When first the consternating crows Break on the winter-keen repose Of February day Their strident cawings, Startling with Stygian silhouettes The Virgin snows To wake, and with faint thawings, Like speech half-audible, Murmur of spring, until we houselings feel ... Or dream we feel ... the breath Of blowing violets, That start where the old oak-leaf floats to death, At such a time. ... On this your birthday morning, winter-weary, Once more the stealing rhyme Runs up within my heart, to greet you, dearie. For now through all of nature that we love A vernal change, like love's, has late begun; The northing sun That nightly from Ascutney shall remove Farther its setting, fills The valley-chalice of the Cornish hills With wine of warmer splendors; by woodways Those spurting flames of blue, the jays, Less oft the eye and ear amaze, Mock musical, with gong-like throat, Ringing the red-wing'd blackbird's note; More seldom sounds the frosty axe, And by the rabbit-run Our gaunt embroideries of snowshoe tracks Grow softly blurred and charr'd On their south edgings, while the logging-bells Tinkle less coldly through the hemlock dells, Or cease, amid snow-muffled lumber-stacks, Where sledges come to "whoa!" in the mill yard. Therefore, because this lovely season leaves, Like all else, only memory to take Joy of its vestiges, now for the sake Of fleet delights that never may return, Watch, dear, with me, where, 'neath the drooping eaves The iris-dewed icicles burn and burn, Till Beauty on our minds indelibly Shall brand her image, bright with mutability. | 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 A CHILD AT THE WICKET by PERCY MACKAYE |
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