of the thorn and the larch:
Wild April, enkindled to laughter and storm by the kiss of the
wildest of winds that blow,
Calls loud on his brother for witness; his hands that were laden
with blossom are sprinkled with snow,
And his lips breathe winter, and laugh, and relent; and the live
woods feel not the frost's flame parch;
For the flame of the spring that consumes not but quickens is felt
at the heart of the forest aglow,
And the sparks that enkindled and fed it were strewn from the hands
of the gods of the winds of March.




THE COMMONWEAL

1887


I

Eight hundred years and twenty-one
Have shone and sunken since the land
Whose name is freedom bore such brand
As marks a captive, and the sun
Beheld her fettered hand.


II