Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO AN EARLY SPRING DAY, by THOMAS STURGE MOORE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO AN EARLY SPRING DAY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O day, thou found'st me sleeping; let me sleep!
Last Line: Exalting her with this thy strenuous might.
Alternate Author Name(s): Moore, T. Sturge
Subject(s): Spring


O DAY, thou found'st me sleeping; let me sleep!
Too many of thy brothers too like thee
Have waked me with such manners. Didst thou peep
With something of thy sisters' smile, may be
I even then would sleep; though they were gay
And called me oft in leafy flowery May:
Of banks more soft with moss than any bed,
With lush bee-peopled canopies o'er head,
They knew, and talking led me out to play.

Ah, they were gay, thy sisters! They were young,
And like the flowers, half divine with dew
Diamonds in their roughened manes or flung
Forth in their frolic; nothing sad they knew.
But thou, thou hast the sob of many sorrows;
Gloom from a stormy night thy wet wing borrows;
Each pelting shower, like angry sudden tears,
Answers an urgent spurring which one hears
Driving thee on t'ward disenchanted morrows.

Alas, there is but wind and rain abroad,
Fatiguing warmth that tempts the sharded buds!
I would I were a god of stone to hoard,
As russet grange the summer's golden floods,
All that Greece knew of beauty in her youth:
And, vantaged, from an island temple's roof
Had watched a shore-road near across the sea,
Since young men on white horses buoyantly
Chanting rode by to meet the dawn of truth;

A god who pays to-day no heed, a form
Though handless, footless, still in trance elate,
And tingling with old splendours that keep warm
(As echoes through a stone reverberate)
His comely stillness. So grand songs are held
Spell-bound within the temple where they swelled
Long after all the choristers have ceased,
Might my life, thus immured, ne'er be released
To learn how men from such fair gods rebelled!

O Day, grey-habited, thou too art sad!
Thou, too, art all too conscious of the past..
Of all those leaves that thy forerunners had
To bathe in, plunge in, fall to sleep at last,
Tired out like children, in! Thou, with thy rain
Pelting wet roofs and dripping boughs, wouldst fain
Dance among flowers and make the roses bob;
Thou wouldst from dells of thyme and clover rob
Scents to make sea-nymphs sniff and sniff again.

Then let us, Day, go friendly! help thou me,
Strengthen my feet and occupy my hands;
And from all clinging yearning set me free
To find in things the look that understands
With mother-like alacrity, our need!
For nature is her children's friend indeed,
Who need not then be exiles anywhere;
But, loving beauty, still find beauty there,
As thou canst find thee comfort in thy speed.

Rough Minister of Life, thine infant hand
May once have ushered Psyche through Love's house:
Viewless and trembling didst thou later stand
And soothe her sleep with music? shy as mouse,
Evade but when, with many a skyey leap
From cloud-caps downward, came, with meteor sweep,
Her rosy husband? Ah, attend my prayers,
Immediate as her unseen ministers,
Till hope grow real enough to clasp in sleep!

In sleep we can believe we, rapt and fain,
Full knowledge of elusive beauty store:
In sleep we do not know ourselves, nor strain
Like birds at sea and fainting ere the shore,
To reach a joy that, ever seeming near,
Lies far beyond our strength: in sleep we hear,
As echoes hear, who do not weep at songs,
And unmoved watch, like stars, unpitied wrongs.
Then, Day, storm on till sleep be doubly dear!

Press on and shoulder up thy lagging clouds!
Invigour me! Born from thine energy,
And bright from thy despair, with leaves in crowds,
The spring shall be! at last the spring shall be!
Beauty shall like a day-dream brave the light..
A day-dream likelier than the dreams of night
Surmised among thy sisters, Summer Days,
When, 'mid birds singing, I will sing her praise
Exalting her with this thy strenuous might.





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