| |
| IT is the first mild day of March: | |
| Each minute sweeter than before, | |
| The Redbreast sings from the tall larch | |
| That stands beside our door. | |
| |
| There is a blessing in the air, | 5 |
| Which seems a sense of joy to yield | |
| To the bare trees, and mountains bare, | |
| And grass in the green field. | |
| |
| My Sister! (’tis a wish of mine) | |
| Now that our morning meal is done, | 10 |
| Make haste, your morning task resign; | |
| Come forth and feel the sun. | |
| |
| Edward will come with you;—and pray, | |
| Put on with speed your woodland dress; | |
| And bring no book: for this one day | 15 |
| We’ll give to idleness. | |
| |
| No joyless forms shall regulate | |
| Our living Calendar: | |
| We from to-day, my friend, will date | |
| The opening of the year. | 20 |
| |
| Love, now a universal birth, | |
| From heart to heart is stealing, | |
| From earth to man, from man to earth, | |
| —It is the hour of feeling. | |
| |
| One moment now may give us more | 25 |
| Than years of toiling reason: | |
| Our minds shall drink at every pore | |
| The spirit of the season. | |
| |
| Some silent laws our hearts will make, | |
| Which they shall long obey: | 30 |
| We for the year to come may take | |
| Our temper from to-day. | |
| |
| And from the blessed power that rolls | |
| About, below, above, | |
| We’ll frame the measure of our souls: | 35 |
| They shall be tuned to love. | |
| |
| Then come, my Sister! come I pray, | |
| With speed put on your woodland dress; | |
| —And bring no book: for this one day | |
| We’ll give to idleness. | 40 |
| |
