| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | Earliest Spring | | By William Dean Howells (1837–1920) |
| | | TOSSING his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles, | |
| Lion-like March cometh in, hoarse, with tempestuous breath, | |
| Through all the moaning chimneys, and ’thwart all the hollows and angles | |
| Round the shuddering house, threating of winter and death. | |
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| But in my heart I feel the life of the wood and the meadow | 5 |
| Thrilling the pulses that own kindred with fibres that lift | |
| Bud and blade to the sunward, within the inscrutable shadow, | |
| Deep in the oak’s chill core, under the gathering drift. | |
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| Nay, to earth’s life in mine some prescience, or dream, or desire | |
| (How shall I name it aright?) comes for a moment and goes— | 10 |
| Rapture of life ineffable, perfect—as if in the brier, | |
| Leafless there by my door, trembled a sense of the rose. | | | | |
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