Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The poetical works of Alfred Tennyson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material is part of the Elmer Belt Florence Nightingale collection. The original may be consulted at University of California Libraries.
843/870 page 807
![I hear a cliarra of song thro' all the land. Come, Spriuj^! She comes, and Earth is glad To roll her North below thy deepeuiug dome, But ere thy maideu birk be wholly clad. And these low bushes dip their twigs in foam, Make all true hearths thy home. Across my garden! and the thicket stirs. The fountain pulses high in sunnier jets, The blackcap warbles, and the turtle purrs, The starling claps his tiny castanets. Still round her forehead wheels the woodland dove. And scatters on her throat the sparks of dew. The kingcup fills her footjirint, and above Broaden the glowing isles of vernal bine. Hail an)ple ])resence of a Queen, Bountiful, beautiful, apparell'd gay. Whoso mantle, every shade of glancing green. Flies back in fragrant breezes to dis- play A tunic white as May! She whispers, From the South I bring you balm, For on a tropic mountain was I born, While some dark dweller by the cocoa- palm Watch'd my far meadow zoned with airy morn; From under rose a muffled moan of floods; I sat beneath a solitude of snow; There no one came, the turf was fresh, the woods Plunged gulf on gulf thro' all their vales below. I saw beyond their silent tops The steaming marshes of the scarlet cranes. The slant seas leaning on the mangrove copse, And summer basking in the sultry plains About a land of canes; Then from my vapor-glrdle soaring forth I scaled the buoyant highway of the birds, And drank the dews and drizzle of the North, That I might mix with men, and hear their words On pathway'd plains; for—while my hand exults Within the bloodless heart of lowly flowers To work old laws of Love to fresh results, Thro' manifold effect of simple pow ers — I too would teach the man Beyonil the darker hour to see the bright, That his fresh life may close as it began, The still fulfilling promise of a light Narrowing the bounds of night. So wed thee with my soul, that I may mark The coming year's great good and varied ills, And new developments, whatever spark Be struck from out the clash of warring- wills ; Or whether, since our nature cannot rest. The smoke of war's volcano burst again From hoary deeps that belt the changeful West, Old Empires, dwellings of the kings of men; Or should those fail, that hold the helm. While the long day of knowledge grows and warms, And in the heart of this most ancient realm A hateful voice be utter'd, and alarms Sounding To arms ! to arms! A simpler, saner lesson might he learn Who reads thy gradual process, Holy Spring. Thy leaves possess the season in their turn. And in their time thy warblers rise on wing. How surely glidest thou from March to Majr,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20452597_0843.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
