The dappled sunlight heard those airy footsteps on the grass,
Rustling in the coppice and
Dancing on the sward.
The mottled elm trees knew them, and bade them lightly pass,
Flitting in the hollows where
The winter’s moss was stored.
And even the silent cypresses put on a lighter green,
And spread new branches round their trunks where laughing Spring had been.
The ripples at the ocean’s shore came curling faster in,
Breaking on the shingle and
Washing on the sand.
Lone sea-gulls on their beaches called forlornly to their kin,
Sweeping out to seaward and
Flapping back to land.
And far below the sea-born blossoms owning Neptune king,
Turned chilly faces upward to the filtered beams of Spring.
Luxuriant tropic creepers pushed their bursting buds to light,
Rioting in glory at
The new-awakened day.
On Alpine slopes undreamt of flowers sprang upwards in a night,
Carpeting the uplands with
The galaxies of May.
And in farmer Stedley’s meadow, the broom-tree burst its pod,
And joined with Earth’s ten thousand tongues, in wonder praising God.