Page:May-day and other pieces, Emerson, 1867.djvu/22

10 The cowslips make the brown brook gay;

A happier hour, a longer day.

Now the sun leads in the May,

Now desire of action wakes,

And the wish to roam.

The caged linnet in the spring

Hearkens for the choral glee,

When his fellows on the wing

Migrate from the Southern Sea;

When trellised grapes their flowers unmask,

And the new-born tendrils twine,

The old wine darkling in the cask

Feels the bloom on the living vine,

And bursts the hoops at hint of spring:

And so, perchance, in Adam's race,

Of Eden's bower some dream-like trace

Survived the Flight, and swam the Flood,

And wakes the wish in youngest blood