Well may I guess and feel

Why Autumn should be sad;

But vernal airs should sorrow heal,

Spring should be gay and glad:

Yet as along this violet bank I rove,

The languid sweetness seems to choke my breath,

I sit me down beside the hazel grove,

And sigh, and half could wish my weariness were death.

Like a bright veering cloud

Grey blossoms twinkle there,

Warbles around a busy crowd

Of larks in purest air.

Shame on the heart that dreams of blessings gone,

Or wakes the spectral forms of woe and crime,

When nature sings of joy and hope alone,

Reading her cheerful lesson in her own sweet time.

Nor let the proud heart say,

In her self-torturing hour,

The travail pangs must have their way,

The aching brow must lower.

To us long since the glorious Child is born

Our throes should be forgot, or only seem

Like a sad vision told for joy at morn,

For joy that we have wak’d and found it but a dream.

Mysterious to all thought

A mother’s prime of bliss,

When to her eager lips is brought

Her infant’s thrilling kiss.

O never shall it set, the sacred light

Which dawns that moment on her tender gaze,

In the eternal distance blending bright

Her darling’s hope and hers, for love and joy and praise.

No need for her to weep

Like Thracian wives of yore,

Save when in rapture still and deep

Her thankful heart runs o’er.

They mourn’d to trust their treasure on the main,

Sure of the storm, unknowing of their guide:

Welcome to her the peril and the pain,

For well she knows the bonus where they may safely hide.

She joys that one is born

Into a world forgiven,

Her Father’s household to adorn,

And dwell with her in Heaven.

So have I seen, in Spring’s bewitching hour,

When the glad Earth is offering all her best,

Some gentle maid bend o’er a cherish’d flower,

And wish it worthier on a Parent’s heart to rest.