The Great May

Who said the Spring was dead?
She would not come again,
Dust on her starry head,
For a sad world in pain?
The thing they have said in vain,
She comes new garlanded:
Lovely on hill and plain
Her lights, her flowers are shed.

Never was such a May!
Mercy of God, to prove
Life springs from the clay
And every treasured love
Walks in a heavenly grove.
The Lord God's holiday
To the soft coo of the dove
With the young lambs at play.

Lo! yours, and yours, are there,
I see them leap and run
In a May-world past compare
Whereof our God is sun.
They rejoice, yea, every one
In the ambient light and air,
Their pleasures are not done
From morn till evening star.

Never was such a Spring!
Oh, you whose eyes are wet,
Listen, take comforting,
Our God does not forget.
Poor folk that fear and fret
Your hours are on the wing
To the loves that wait you yet,
Raised up and triumphing.