Best and brightest, come away!
Fairer far than this fair Day
Which, like thee to those in sorrow
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough Year just awake
In its cradle on the brake
The Brightest hour of unborn Spring
Through the winter wandering
Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn
To hoar February born
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth
It kissed the forehead of the Earth
And smiled upon the silent sea
And bade the frozen streams be free
And waked to music all their fountains
And breathed upon thе frozen mountains
And like a prophetеss of May
Strewed flowers upon the barren way
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear
Away, away, from men and towns
To the wild wood and the downs—
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music lest it should not find
An echo in another’s mind
While the touch of Nature’s art
Harmonizes heart to heart
I leave this notice on my door
For each accustomed visitor:—
“I am gone into the fields
To take what this sweet hour yields;—
Reflection, you may come tomorrow
Sit by the fireside with Sorrow.—
You with the unpaid bill, Despair,—
You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care,—
I will pay you in the grave,—
Death will listen to your stave
Expectation too, be off!
Today is for itself enough;
Hope, in pity mock not Woe
With smiles, nor follow where I go;
Long having lived on thy sweet food
At length I find one moment’s good
After long pain—with all your love
This you never told me of.”
Radiant Sister of the Day
Awake! arise! And come away!
To the wild woods and the plains
And the pools where winter rains
Image all their roof of leaves
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green, and ivy dun
Round stems that never kiss the sun:
Where the lawns and pastures be
And the sandhills of the sea:—
Where the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets
And wind-flowers, and violets
Which yet join not scent to hue
Crown the pale year weak and new;
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dun and blind
And the blue noon is over us
And the multitudinous
Billows murmur at our feet
Where the earth and ocean meet
And all things seem only one
In the universal sun