Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/339

 1840-50.] CATHERINE A. WARFIELD. 323 Yet 'twas for these — earth's vanity, The word of hollow praise, The flatterer's fixed and fawning eye, The world's enchanted gaze : For these, which to my world-sick eyes Seem dark and loathsome guiles. That I forsook our early ties, And thine approving smiles. Thou, whose young life was all mine own, Whose worship was a flame Too pure for aught save heaven's throne. And God's undying name ; Thou wert forsaken to a doom Of sick and lone despair: The shadow of thine early tomb Falls o'er me every where ! Yet, unforgotten one, I crave Thy pillow for my head ; Better the still, the silent grave. Than life, with torture fed. "Would that my weary lips had quaffed Their deep and sacred part Of that profound, oblivious draught. That made thee what thou art ! SPRING THUNDER. We know by the breath of the balmy air, By the springing grass and the sunshine fair — By the soft rain falling — as if in love The sleeping blossoms and bulbs above — By the tint of green on the forest brown, By the fallen tassels of Aspen down, By the lilac bud and the tufted larch — That we have done with the wayward March. We know by the call of the nestling bird, As she feels her mother impulse stirred, By the venturing forth of the lonely bee (Like the dove sent out o'er the olden sea), By the croak of the frog in his willowy pond, By the dove's low moan in the copse beyond. By the quickening pulse and the thrilling vein, That April laughs into life again. But not the sunshine, the breeze, the showers, The tender green on the embryo flowers, The voices of birds or the quickened sense, Appeal with such startling eloquence To the heart that yearns for the summer's reign (Weary and earth-sick from winter's chain). As that sound which seems through space to ring The first low Thunder of wakened Spring ! O marvel not that the men of old Deemed its deep music by gods con- trolled. And, by the power that within them strove, Called it the wrath of the mystic Jove — For we are stirred with an awe profound By that mysterious and sullen sound — Nor give we faith to the bii'ds and bloom 'Till we hear that fiat of Winter's doom. So in the Spring of our life's career We stand and gaze on the opening year, We feel the sunshine, we drink the breeze, But no source of feeling is stirred by these ; Not till the voice of the stormy soul Swells like the sound of the thunder's roll — Not till the floodgates of sorrow break In pas^ionate tears — doth our Summer wake !