Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/203

Rh But for a lofty sign

Which the Zodiac threw,

That the bondage-days are told,

And waters free as winds shall flow.

Lo! how all the tribes combine

To rout the flying foe.

See, every patriot oak-leaf throws

His elfin length upon the snows,

Not idle, since the leaf all day

Draws to the spot the solar ray,

Ere sunset quarrying inches down,

And halfway to the mosses brown;

While the grass beneath the rime

Has hints of the propitious time,

And upward pries and perforates

Through the cold slab a thousand gates,

Till green lances peering through

Bend happy in the welkin blue.

As we thaw frozen flesh with snow,

So Spring will not her time forerun,

Mix polar night with tropic glow,

Nor cloy us with unshaded sun,

Nor wanton skip with bacchic dance,

But she has the temperance

Of the gods, whereof she is one,—

Masks her treasury of heat

Under east winds crossed with sleet.

Plants and birds and humble creatures