GOD guard you, and greet you well, Messengers of Spring: Nightingale and cuckoo, Turtle-dove and hoopoe, Swallow swift, and all wild birds That with a hundred varied words Rouse and make to ring Every greening glade and fell. God guard you, and greet you fain, Dainty flowerets, too: Daisies, lilies, roses, Poppies -- and the posies Sprung where ancient heroes fell, Hyacinth and asphodel-- Mint and thyme and rue: All be welcome back again! God guard you, and greet you true, Butterflies and bees, In your motley dresses Wooing the sweet grasses, Flitting free on rainbow-wing, Coaxing, kissing, cozening Flowers of all degrees, Red or yellow, white or blue. A thousand thousand times I greet Thy return again, Sweet and beauteous season; In sooth I love with reason Better far thy sunny gleams And thy gently prattling streams Than Winter's wind and rain That shut me close in my retreat. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WHAT DO I CARE by SARA TEASDALE THE KING OF SPAIN by MAXWELL BODENHEIM STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING by ROBERT FROST TO A CYCLAMEN by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR IN MEMORIAM: W.G. WARD by ALFRED TENNYSON EMBLEMS OF LOVE: 37. LOVE'S MY POLE-STAR by PHILIP AYRES |