In the lyric tide of April, in the month of daffodils,
In the gush of the gold of morning I came to the heart of the hills,--
Came by a virgin pathway that the vernal goddess trod
On her singing way from the southland over the sleeping sod.
And a chorus of choiring voices ever anigh me spake,
The tawny throat by the rillside, the red-breast out of the brake,
The pipers hid in the rushes, with their clear "Chee-weep! chee-weep!"
And the fleet wind-children chanting their runes of the upper deep.
A flush of rose and of amber, of sapphire and beryl shade,--
These were the woven glories that the waking morn displayed;
Beauty above and about me! Fluctuant? fading? nay!
Glowing, flowing, and growing in the rising flood of the day!
The soul within me was buoyant, and the spirit in me was one
With the throb of the great earth-passion, with the thrill of the vital sun.
I felt in my veins the pulsing, I knew in my thews the power
That stirred in the root of the grasses, that breathed through the lips of the flower.
If but for the span of a moment I swam in the aura of flame;
I caught the rapt secret of being clothed by the Ineffable Name.
And chastened with wonder and strengthened to meet life's beleaguering ills
I went, like a bondman unfettered, adown from the heart of the hills.
