Signs of things to come

Windflowers by John William Waterhouse


THE MIRACLE

COME, sweetheart, listen, for I have a thing
Most wonderful to tell you -- news of spring.

Albeit winter still is in the air,
And the earth troubled, and the branches bare,

Yet down the fields to-day I saw her pass --
The spring -- her feet went shining through
the grass.

She touched the ragged hedgerows -- I have
seen
Her finger-prints, most delicately green;

And she has whispered to the crocus leaves,
And to the garrulous sparrows in the eaves.

Swiftly she passed and shyly, and her fair
Young face was hidden in her cloudy hair.

She would not stay, her season is not yet,
But she has reawakened, and has set

The sap of all the world astir, and rent
Once more the shadows of our discontent.

Triumphant news -- a miracle I sing --
The everlasting miracle of spring.



Narcissus by John Willam Waterhouse