NOW are the days of greyness and of gloom;
Now are the heavens expressionless and sad:
Crisp winter has departed, yet the glad
Spring-smile has not yet freshened from the tomb.
There is a gleamy sunrise every day,
It mostly into weeping melts away,
Yet upon every dripping, leafless bough
See how the birds sit, singing in the rain;
Most innocently sure that yet again
Life shall grow lovely: no mysterious 'How?'
Troubles with wistfulness and spoils the strain.
We, self-bound, human weaklings!--need a store

Of hardly-garnered, inward hopefulness.
So to translate a present dim distress
To mean 'the future shall but shine the more.'
'Tis what we know, and what we partly know
Hinders our sight, at times when, dim and grey,
Soulless as death, shrivels the bloom away
From lovely things; and if our hope would go
Further than sight can lead us, 'tis with pain
And strivings of the will that we attain
Such trustfulness as makes the small bird sing
Of sunshine, shaking sky-tears from its wing,
Knowing the gloom must gladden into spring.