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THE VOICE OF SPRING*[1].
I come, I come! ye have call'd me long,
I come o'er the mountains with light and song!
Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth,
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves, opening as I pass.
I have breathed on the south, and the chesnut flowers
By thousands have burst from the forest-bowers,
And the ancient graves, and the fallen fanes,
Are veil'd with wreaths on Italian plains;
—But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom,
To speak of the ruin or the tomb!
I have look'd o'er the hills of the stormy north,
And the larch has hung all his tassels forth,
- ↑ * Originally published in the New Monthly Magazine.