| |
| MAKE me over, mother April, | |
| When the sap begins to stir! | |
| When thy flowery hand delivers | |
| All the mountain-prisoned rivers, | |
| And thy great heart beats and quivers | 5 |
| To revive the days that were, | |
| Make me over, mother April, | |
| When the sap begins to stir! | |
| |
| Take my dust and all my dreaming, | |
| Count my heart-beats one by one, | 10 |
| Send them where the winters perish; | |
| Then some golden noon recherish | |
| And restore them in the sun, | |
| Flower and scent and dust and dreaming, | |
| With their heart-beats every one! | 15 |
| |
| Set me in the urge and tide-drift | |
| Of the streaming hosts a-wing! | |
| Breast of scarlet, throat of yellow, | |
| Raucous challenge, wooings mellow— | |
| Every migrant is my fellow, | 20 |
| Making northward with the spring. | |
| Loose me in the urge and tide-drift | |
| Of the streaming hosts a-wing! | |
| |
| Shrilling pipe or fluting whistle, | |
| In the valleys come again; | 25 |
| Fife of frog and call of tree-toad, | |
| All my brothers, five or three-toed, | |
| With their revel no more vetoed, | |
| Making music in the rain; | |
| Shrilling pipe or fluting whistle, | 30 |
| In the valleys come again. | |
| |
| Make me of thy seed to-morrow, | |
| When the sap begins to stir! | |
| Tawny light-foot, sleepy bruin, | |
| Bright-eyes in the orchard ruin, | 35 |
| Gnarl the good life goes askew in, | |
| Whisky-jack, or tanager,— | |
| Make me anything to-morrow, | |
| When the sap begins to stir! | |
| |
| Make me even (How do I know?) | 40 |
| Like my friend the gargoyle there; | |
| It may be the heart within him | |
| Swells that doltish hands should pin him | |
| Fixed forever in mid-air. | |
| Make me even sport for swallows, | 45 |
| Like the soaring gargoyle there! | |
| |
| Give me the old clue to follow, | |
| Through the labyrinth of night! | |
| Clod of clay with heart of fire, | |
| Things that burrow and aspire, | 50 |
| With the vanishing desire | |
| For the perishing delight,— | |
| Only the old clue to follow, | |
| Through the labyrinth of night! | |
| |
| Make me over, mother April, | 55 |
| When the sap begins to stir! | |
| Fashion me from swamp or meadow, | |
| Garden plot or ferny shadow, | |
| Hyacinth or humble burr! | |
| Make me over, mother April, | 60 |
| When the sap begins to stir! | |
| |
| Let me hear the far, low summons, | |
| When the silver winds return; | |
| Rills that run and streams that stammer, | |
| Goldenwing with his loud hammer, | 65 |
| Icy brooks that brawl and clamour, | |
| Where the Indian willows burn; | |
| Let me hearken to the calling, | |
| When the silver winds return, | |
| |
| Till recurring and recurring, | 70 |
| Long since wandered and come back, | |
| Like a whim of Grieg’s or Gounod’s, | |
| This same self, bird, bud, or Bluenose, | |
| Some day I may capture (Who knows?) | |
| Just the one last joy I lack, | 75 |
| Waking to the far new summons, | |
| When the old spring winds come back. | |
| |
| For I have no choice of being, | |
| When the sap begins to climb,— | |
| Strong insistence, sweet intrusion, | 80 |
| Vasts and verges of illusion,— | |
| So I win, to time’s confusion | |
| The one perfect pearl of time, | |
| Joy and joy and joy forever, | |
| Till the sap forgets to climb! | 85 |
| |
| Make me over in the morning | |
| From the rag-bag of the world! | |
| Scraps of dream and duds of daring, | |
| Home-brought stuff from far sea-faring, | |
| Faded colours once so flaring, | 90 |
| Shreds of banners long since furled! | |
| Hues of ash and glints of glory, | |
| In the rag-bag of the world! | |
| |
| Let me taste the old immortal | |
| Indolence of life once more; | 95 |
| Not recalling nor foreseeing, | |
| Let the great slow joys of being | |
| Well my heart through as of yore! | |
| Let me taste the old immortal | |
| Indolence of life once more! | 100 |
| |
| Give me the old drink for rapture, | |
| The delirium to drain, | |
| All my fellows drank in plenty | |
| At the Three Score Inns and Twenty | |
| From the mountains to the main! | 105 |
| Give me the old drink for rapture, | |
| The delirium to drain! | |
| |
| Only make me over, April, | |
| When the sap begins to stir! | |
| Make me man or make me woman, | 110 |
| Make me oaf or ape or human, | |
| Cup of flower or cone of fir; | |
| Make me anything but neuter | |
| When the sap begins to stir! | |
| |
