AN IDYL OF SPRING.
A CROSS the half-clad branches
The softened sunlight falls,
Its mellow glory slanting
Through stately forest halls.
The amber green of spring-time
Folds over barren sprays,
Above its faint bloom floating
A dream of summer days,
And like an angel's blessing
The passing wind's rich psalm
Swells through the breathless silence,
And dies away in calm.
Beneath our feet are peeping
The heralds of the spring,
Wind-flower and daisy lifting
Their starry blossoming.
They whisper of the summer,
Of fair June's perfect day;
The grace of incompleteness
Is thine, beloved May.
Thine is the tender promise
Of coming leaf and bloom,
And thine the rare heart choral
Of earth and heaven in tune.
Now fainter falls the sunlight;
Within the western sky
The crimson sunset roses
Bloom out, and fade, and die.
Around us, gray and gloomy,
The forest shadows fall;
From branch to branch the song-birds
Pipe low their goodnight call;
And still the beauty lingers
Within the deepening shade;
And still the great wind organ
By angel hands is played.
—H. M. Hastings.