Early Spring

Swiftly along these woodland ways,
  Where squirrels scud and thrushes sing,
From the long trance of wintry days
      Wakes the warm heart of spring.

Gleaming with April sunshine's gold,
  The bare trees glow with hope of green,
With glimpses of the wide brown wold
      And pale pure blue between.

On a keen breeze from heath-clad hills
  Floats shrill and sad a curlew's cry;
And here the bell-voiced blackbird trills
      His random minstrelsy.

The sweet scent from the trampled sod,
  The very song the wild birds sing,
Remind me of the paths I trod
      In some forgotten spring.

Somewhere I knew this spring-tide scene; —
  Ah! when and how I cannot tell, —
These ways where I have never been,
      And yet — I know so well.