The spring has passed this way. Look! where she trod
The daring crocus sprang up through the sod
To greet her coming with glad heedlessness,
Scarce waiting to put on its leafy dress,
But bright and bold in its brave nakedness.
And further on — mark! — on this gentle rise
She must have paused, for frail anemones
Are trembling to the wind, couched low among
These fresh green grasses, that so lush have sprung
O'er the hid runnel, that with tinkling tongue
Babbles its secret troubles. Here she stopped
A longer while, and on this grassy sweep,
While pensively she lingered, see! she dropped
This knot of lovesick violets from her breast,
Which, as she threw them down, she must have kissed,
For still the fragrance of her breath they keep.
And look! here too her floating robes have brushed,
Where suddenly these almond-branches flushed
To greet her, and in blossoms burst as she
Swept by them — gladsomely and gracefully.

Where is she now? Gone! Vain it were to try
To overtake her. Here, then, let us lie
On this green bank and weave a wreath, and sing
From our full hearts the joyous praise of spring,
Grateful for these dear gifts she left behind —
The flowers, the grass, the soft and odorous wind,
The lingering effluence, the subtle grace
That still, though she has vanished, haunts the place.

Pursuit is vain; for she, like all things fair.
Will not be hunted down into her lair,
And caught and prisoned. Let us not be rude,
Nor seek into her presence to intrude,
But praise her in the distance. Then, perchance,
She may not flee away with winged feet,
But pause and backward cast a favoring glance,
And waft a fragrance to us rare and sweet.
Too eager, we our present joy may miss
In the vain chase of an imagined bliss;
The ideal joy no human hand can seize,
The dream that lures us and before us flees.

The day is passing. Let us own its spell;
And as these trees, feeling within them swell
The blind, dim stirring of the spring, express
In leaves and blossoms their mute thankfulness,
So, grateful, let us take what nature gives;
Love be our blossoms — gentle thoughts our leaves.

O God, forgive the years and years
Of worldly pride and hopes and fears;
Forgive, and blot them from thy book,
The sins on which I mourn to look.

Forgive the lack of service done
For thee, thro' life, from life begun;
Forgive the vain desires to be
All else but that desired by thee.

Forgive the love of human praise,
The first false step in crooked ways,
The choice of evil and the night,
The heart close shut against the light.

Forgive the love that could endure
No cost to bless the sad and poor;
Forgive, and give me grace to see
The life laid down in love for me.

There is sultry gloom on the mountain's brow
⁠And a sultry glow beneath;
Oh, for a breeze from the western sea,
Soft and reviving, sweet and free,
Over the shadowless hill and lea,
⁠Over the barren heath.

There are clouds and darkness around God's ways,
⁠And the noon of life grows hot;
And though his faithfulness standeth fast
As the mighty mountains, a shroud is cast
Over the glory, solemn and vast,
⁠Veiling, but changing it not.

Send a sweet breeze from thy sea, O Lord,
⁠From thy deep, deep sea of love;
Though it lift not the veil from the cloudy height,
Let the brow grow cool and the footstep light,
As it comes with holy and soothing might,
⁠Like the wing of a snowy dove.

Why do we heap huge mounds of years,
⁠Before us and behind,
And scorn the little days that pass
⁠Like angels on the wind?

Each, turning round a small, sweet face
⁠As beautiful as near,
Because it is so small a face
⁠We will not see it clear.

And so it turns from us, and goes
⁠Away in sad disdain;
Though we could give our lives for it,
⁠It never comes again.