Before the earliest buds
Have softly opened, heralding the May
With tender light illuming the gray woods,
I shall be gone away.

Ah! wood-walks winding sweet
Through all the valleys sloping to the west,
Where glad brooks wander with melodious feet,
In musical unrest,--

Ye will not miss me here
With all the bright things of the coming May,
And the rejoicing of the awakened year,--
I shall be far away.

Yet in your loneliest nooks,
I know where all the greenest mosses grow,
And where the violets lift their first sweet looks,
Out of the waning snow.

And I have heard, unsought,
Under the musing shadows of the beech,
Wood-voices answering my unspoken thought,
In half-articulate speech.

And oh! ye shadowy bands,
Rank above rank along yon rocky height,
That lift into the heavens your mailed hands,
And linked armour bright.