I will take heart again; the spring
Comes over Sehome hill,
And like tall, splintered spears of gold
The firs stand, soft and still;
Happily in its moist, brown throat
Chatters a loosened rill.
Below, across the violet sea,
With glistening, restless wings,
The seabirds cleave the purple air
In white and endless rings;
Somewhere, within an open space,
One of God’s own larks sings.
The warm breath of the waking earth
Curls up from myriad lips,
And who has loved and lost now drinks
In deep and trembling sips,
With memory’s passionate pulse astir
From heart to finger-tips.
The ferns lift delicate veiny palms
In dimples of the hills,
The spendthrift hyacinth’s perfume
Along the pure air spills;
There is a breathing, faint and far,
From the dark throats of the mills.
The spider flings a glittering thread
From dewy blade to blade,
A robin drops on bended wing,
Near me, yet unafraid;
The early frosts have taken rout
Before the red sun’s raid.
Behold, the earth is glad again,
And she has taken heart,
And in her swelling, fruitful breast,
God’s own love-flowers start.
(Lord, may I not take courage, too?
I and my old self part?)
Yea, when the birds grow dumb again
With pure delights that thrill
Their rapt and innocent souls, till they
Have not desire or will
For song, or sun, or anything
But passion deep and still,
I will go into the dim wood
And lie prone on the sod,
My breast close to the warm earth-breast,
Prostrate, alone with God,
Of all his poor and useless ones,
The poorest, useless clod;
And I will pray (so earnestly
He cannot help but hear):
“Lord, Lord, let me take heart again,
Let my faith shine white and clear,
Let me awaken with the earth,
And leave my old self here!”
“The Awakening” as it appears in Higginson’s When the Birds Go North Again (1898).