Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/169

 IN SPRINGTIME

garden blazes brightly with the rose-bush and the peach,

And the köil sings above it, in the siris by the well,

From the creeper-covered trellis comes the squirrel's chattering speech,

And the blue jay screams and flutters where the cheery satbhai dwell.

But the rose has lost its fragrance, and the köil's note is strange;

I am sick of endless sunshine, sick of blossom-burdened bough.

Give me back the leafless woodlands where the winds of Springtime range—

Give me back one day in England, for it's Spring in England now!

Through the pines the gusts are booming, o'er the brown fields blowing chill,

From the furrow of the plough-share streams the fragrance of the loam,