A Celebration Of Spring

Now that the winter’s gone, the Earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes and now no more the frost
Candies the grass or casts an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream.

The warm Sun thaws the benumbed Earth
And makes it tender, gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow and wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo and the bumble-bee.

Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring
In triumph to the world the youthful spring.
The valleys, hills and woods in rich array
Welcome the coming of the longed for May.

Now all things smile, only my love doth lower.
Nor hath the scalding noon-day Sun the power
To melt that marble ice, which still doth hold
Her heart congealed and makes her pity cold.

The ox, which lately did for shelter fly
Into the stall, doth now securely lie
In open fields. And love no more is made
By the fireside but in the cooler shade.

Amyntas now doth with his Chloris sleep
Under a sycamore and all things keep
Time with the season. Only she doth carry
June in her eyes and in her heart January.

Thomas Carew 1640

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