C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Spring

NOW that the winter’s gone, the earth hath lost

Her snow-white robes; and now no more the frost

Candies the grass or casts an icy cream

Upon the silver lake or crystal stream:

But the warm sun thaws the benumbèd earth,

And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth

To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree

The drowsy cuckoo and the humble-bee.

Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring

In triumph to the world the youthful Spring:

The valleys, hills, and woods, in rich array,

Welcome the coming of the longed-for May.

Now all things smile; only my love doth lower;

Nor hath the scalding noonday sun the power

To melt that marble ice which still doth hold

Her heart congealed, and makes her pity cold.

The ox, which lately did for shelter fly

Into the stall, doth now securely lie

In open fields; and love no more is made

By the fireside; but, in the cooler shade,

Amyntas now doth with his Cloris sleep

Under a sycamore, and all things keep

Time with the season—only she doth carry

June in her eyes, in her heart January.