WE have housed, my Columbine, With our songs and books and dreams, Quiet and content it seems Through the winter's cloud and shine. In our lithe attic room Looking o'er the city square, Quite outside the world of care, All unaltered by its gloom, -- Thou and I, my Columbine, Let the world of men below Unacquainted come and go, In secludedness divine. Ah, those nights, so long, were sweet, And we shall not soon forget Love songs sung in a duet, Far above the city street. And the company 'twas ours To abide in -- Tennyson, Shelley, Keats, and Emerson -- Joyed us in those winter hours. So, my Columbine, together We lived the long season through Till March came, whose wild winds blew Us to days of April weather. All the first sweet dreams of Spring Born again of new desires, In me light unquenching fires To be up and wandering. Newer hopes have won my trust -- I but answer to the call, April smiling over all Fills my soul with wander-lust. There is magic in the stir When our mother April wakes; Some wild riot in me breaks When I feel the pulse of her. On the slowly greening slopes Something in the hanging haze, Luring, leads my tramping ways On a quest for April Hopes. Nature keeps an open house, I am bidden to her board; And she fills me from her hoard Where the sons of earth carouse. |