Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SPRING, by GEORGE MURRAY (1830-1910)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SPRING, by                    
First Line: Why, gentle spring, why hide away
Last Line: "even as now they still are thine."
Subject(s): Flowers; Memory; Nature; Pleasure; Spring


Why, gentle spring, why hide away
'Neath these dark rocks and boulders grey?
Why secret veil thy lovely face
In this unknown, untrodden place?
It fits thee not, this home of thine,
This sunless, sad, rock-walled ravine.
Is it because thy modesty
Fills thee with fears that thou would'st be
Mocked for thy plain simplicity,
If that thou came to dwell abroad,
Matching thy charms against the hoard
Of charming things that Nature spreads
O'er breezy hills and sunny meads?
Or dost thou think thy song would seem
Too plain, too humble in its theme,
To mingle with those joyous lays
Glad birds and gladder breezes raise?
If these, or like, the reasons be
Why hermit-like thou hidest thee
Here in this dungeon spot,—list then:
Two green and flowery hills I ken,
Bounding a meadow's southern side,
Between whose grassy slopes doth hide
A sun-kissed, hazel-shaded dell.
There thou in a green cup may'st dwell,
Moss-lined from bottom to the brim;
And round thy bubble-fringéd rim
The shy white violet shall bloom,
Shedding for thee its rare perfume.
And later, when the summer sun
Shall higher in his course have run,
The wild-rose will her petals pink
Sweetly unfold above thy brink,
While ferns their pointed fronds unroll,
Stretching athwart to keep thee cool
And sheltered from the heat; to you
Such welcome will be rendered due
As this. But for thyself, thine own
Bright face and voice of sweetest tone,
'Twill not be long when thou shalt see
What homage will be paid to thee.
Phœbus, each morn when he doth rise,
With rosy kiss will ope thine eyes.
Each night, when Phœbus far is sped,
The stars shall watch above thy bed,
And make thy face their mirror bright,
To see if they their silver light
Do proper shed abroad. With day
The shepherd lads will foot their way
Behind their flocks to those fresh meads
Where flows the rill thy full cup feeds;
Whose even waters ever keep
The pastures green for kine and sheep,
And in whose depths their tongues do find
A nectar sweeter than the wind
That from their gentle nostrils blows,
Itself far sweeter than the rose.
On pleasant summer holiday,
The roving lads to thee will stray,
And prostrate round thy margin thrown,
Bend to thy lips their rosy own,
To draw the diamond sparkling drink,
And round thy mossy cushioned brink
Linger delightedly and long,
To watch thy bubbling, hear thy song,
Or, far down in the crystal deep,
Study the patient snail's slow creep;
The free and lawless boy to thee
Shall thus resign his sovereignty.
The rustic beauty, village bound
O'er field, instead of going round
By highway, will her path forsake,
Some drops in her pink palm to take
From thee, and 'twixt her dainty lips
Draw in two dainty, dainty sips;
And then (for beauty ne'er was known
To shut her eyes when near her shone
Aught that her beauty might reflect)
She will employ thee to detect
Some dimple new, or budding grace,
Within the blossom of her face,
And envious sigh to see in thee
Complexion clearer than hath she.
But thankful for thy bashful tongue,
She will rise and trip along,
And leave thee to the birds and bees,
That on the bushes and the trees
Sit silent perched; for they have come,
From busy hive and bough-built home,
To learn that glorious art of thee,
The art of tuneful harmony;
And none so soft, or none so sad,
None so loud, nor none so glad,
But from thy wide-ranged song may learn
Some blithesome trill, or tender turn,
To add unto the little store
Of sweetness that each knew before.
The bee can teach his golden wing
A drowsier, sleepier tune to sing,
By listening near that mossy rock,
Beneath which lazy flows thy brook;
The sparrow, when the bubbles break,
Can learn a shorter chirp to take;
Of soft, low tones an endless store
The choice-eared thrush may ponder o'er,
Where from thy brimming bowl's low lip,
With gentle fall thy waters slip;
While for a merry song and gay,
A mirth-awakening roundelay,
Unto the rising sun to bring,
A sole and new sung offering,
The lark will close attention give
Down where thy laughing brook doth live
In a round of pleasure, dancing on
Over its pebble bed sloping down.
But when all these have taken flight,
Scared by the dusky face of night;
When shadows veil day's last red gleam,
And starry silence reigns supreme;
Winging her lonesome flight along,
Will come the queen of feathered song,
Poor Philomel. And she will brood,
In sad, most melancholy mood,
Long on some branch of sleeping flowers,
As if her wing had lost its powers
And never more in air would spread;
And dropping her grief-laden head
Upon her breast, her pensive sight,
And ears that woe's sad notes delight,
In trance of sweetest sadness bind
To that dark spot in its mazy wind,
Where, over some smooth, rounded stone,
Thy silver rill drops with a moan
And sigh of sorrow.
All these to-morrow
May be thy happy joys, sweet spring,
If thou to that bright dell wilt bring
Thy lovely flood, leave this dark home
Unto that sunny one to come,
There 'mid these endless joys to dwell.
O seal this fount, this wasted well!
This bubbling cup let silence fill!
And trace a straight and speedy track,
By subterranean channels black,
To where prepared for thee doth wait
A life whose changeless, one estate
Is joy and gladness!

Thus long ago a youth made plea
Unto a sylvan spring; but she,
Regarding not his earnest tongue,
Still bubbled up and flowed along,
Filling her rocky house with song
And music, smiles and mirth.
"She mocks!" he thought, and he grew wroth;
"She mocks me!" and in sad offence,
He bid a cold adieu and hence
His wounded presence took.
Long, restless, wandering years passed o'er him;
Then, back returning, spread before him,
His youth's remembered home doth range.
But oh! 'twas sadly new and strange!
Nothing was as it was before;
'Twas not the aspect that it bore
Of old, but only the old name,—
In name, but not in fact, the same.
Where were the paths he once had trod?
Where were the sunny hills whose sod
With nodding daisies thick was strown?
Where were the groves he once had known?
Alas! the ruthless, puffing plough
Up-shared those daisied hillsides now;
In the shuddering woods the shrieking saw
Surfeits his fanged and cruel jaw;
No flocks to those fields now were driven,
No herds at eve lowed up to heaven;
The birds to other groves were fled,
The lark did make his dewy bed
In other meadows far away;
Nowhere, in all his vision's play,
Gleamed one loved, memoried sight. Yet stay!
Out 'twixt two gray and stony walls,
A thin stream plashed with gentle falls.
He saw; his heart 'gan quicker beat;
And straight his lost and stranger feet,
No longer helplessly astray,
Did thither bend their hasty way.
And there, oh glad and welcome sight!
Gurgling and bubbling, clear and bright,
Gushed up that ancient, steadfast spring.
"Spirit of constancy! Thou thing
Of patient steadfastness!" he cried,
"Through all these years that I have tried
To find in pleasure's poison cup
Some happiness, or followed up
Deluding Fortune's faithless wheel,
The woe-begetting gold to feel,
Hast thou thus happily dwelt here,
Nor known a woe, nor felt a fear,
Nor drawn a sigh, nor dropped a tear?
Ah, would in foolish youth I had
Thee my good preceptor made!
Then peace and joy might now be mine,
Even as now they still are thine."





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