Come, let us go and be glad again together
Where of old our eyes were opened and we knew that we were

free!
Come, for it is April, and her hands have loosed the tether
That has bound for long her children,—who her children more
than we?

Hark! hear you not how the strong waters thunder
Down through the alders with the word they have to bring?
Even now they win the meadow and the withered turf is under,
And, above, the willows quiver with foreknowledge of the spring.

Yea, they come, and joy in coming; for the giant hills have sent
them,—
The hills that guard the portal where the South has built her
throne;
Unloitering their course is,—can wayside pools content them,
Who were born where old pine forests for the sea forever
moan?

And they, behind the hills, where forever bloom the flowers,
Do they ever know the worship of the re-arisen Earth?
Do their hands ever clasp such a happiness as ours,
Now the waters foam about us and the grasses have their birth?

Faire is their land—yea, fair beyond all dreaming,—
With its sun upon the roses and its long summer day;
Yet surely they must envy us our vision of the gleaming
Of our lay’s white throat as she comes her ancient way.

For their year is never April—oh, what were Time without her!
Yea, the drifted snows may cover us, yet shall we not complain;
Knowing well our Lady April—all her raiment blown about her—
Will return with many kisses for our unremembered pain!