THOU art coming fruitful Summer
Down the starry steep of Time,
And the vision makes my spirit
Burst unbidden into rhyme!
Thou art coming, robed in splendour,
Like a bridegroom to his bride,
And the Earth, crowned with Spring-blossoms,
Fain would smile thee to her side.

Thou art coming, in thy brightness,
Down the steep and starry slope
Of the dim prophetic Future,
By the golden gate of Hope
She is watching to behold thee
In thy ripe and ruddy charms,
Skies are waiting to enfold thee
In their world-embracing arms.
As the mariner a-slumber,
'Mid the Ocean-billows' roar,
Dreams of meeting with his true love
On some dear and distant shore,
She has hungered for thy presence
When her hills were hid in snow,
And in dreams beheld thy glory
When bleak Boreas did blow;
She has borne the blasts of Winter,
She has felt the frozen breath
Of that King of Desolation-
Hoary kinsman of dark Death!
But thou comest in thy brightness
To embrace the Earth again,
Like a sunburst on the meadows
After days of drenching rain.

Thou art peering through Spring-shadows,
And thy chastened glory gleams
Like the presence of the angels
Through an infant's Eden-dreams,
Like the sun of joy and gladness
Through rich rain of happy tears,
Or the memory of childhood
Through the mantling mist of years.

In the rosy flush of morning,
Or the crimson glow of eve,
Or the dimness of the twilight,
When the yellow moth doth leave
His leaf-palace in the thicket,
And, on wings of moonlight spread,
Seeks his bride, turned to a field-flower,
And flies circling round her bed
To unwind the witching charm-web
Which had lured her from her nest,
While he rings her with love-lustre-
Folds her beauty to his breast,
We shall feel thy radiant spirit
Brooding o'er us like a dove,
Full of mystery and glory,
Full of beauty and of love!
For as Jove came down to Danæ,
To embrace the Earth again,
Thou art coming down from Heaven
In a shower of golden grain;
Thou wilt fill her cup of being
With the fiery wine of life,
She will walk the Heights of Rapture
When thou takest her to wife.

Like some bright embodied Splendour,
Or the Spirit of the Noon
Clad in leaf-enwoven kirtle,
Crimson scarf, and 'golden shoon,'
Thou wilt hold the sleeping Thunder
In the hollow of thy hand,
Whilst the lightning's fiery fountains
Overflow at thy command!
Thou wilt raise the human spirit,
Rouse and renovate the sod,
Making Earth look more like Heaven,
Making man more like his God,
Shewing shadows of lost Eden
When the dim-red moon doth rise,
Flashing Heaven through rich sunsets
On the bard's adoring eyes!
Thou art coming swathed in glory
Down the starry steep of Time,
And the pageant makes my spirit
Burst unbidden into rhyme;
For I see thy sunbright sceptre,
And thy sanguine-cintured zone,
And thy crown of purple fruitage,
And thy green and golden throne!