A Long-Retarded Spring

THE spring has come at last. At last the spring
Has come. O give me grace, divining leaves,
To burst the bud of time and cast, myself,
Your shadows on hot sidewalks of the town.
Shyly and unbeknownst to shed cool haven
To many weary unto death. Let joy
That streams along my veins as sap in yours
Communicate with a soft windy music
Joy to my race that never should be sad Or angry.

Now the robin on the lawn
Sings his good-night song, and the whirling sprinkler
Makes little rainbows like a little rain.
And stilling in my heart my song of pleasure,
I say, ‘What right have you to leaf when many,
Your countrymen, stand winter-killed and leafless?‘<br/&gt; The gardener says: ‘That was a brutal winter.
The privet hedge is gone, the climbing roses,
And nearly all the shrubs. We must cut back,
Back to the roots.’ ‘O cut them back,’ I said.
‘The roots are sound. It may take several years.’

Holy America, your topmost boughs
Are leafless because greedy frost has killed them.
Your roots are sound; only the showy leaves
Are dead. Let us cut back to the sound roots.
The spring has come, a long-retarded spring —
Tears for lost planting, and I learn that weeds
And weevils also suffered. Let us not
Be angry, for the spring at last has come.
O give us grace, divining leaves, O burst
The bud of time into the future rose.