James Oppenheim

O MILLION-SINGING comes the May

And whose dumb heart but wakes and thrills?

Now, as of old, the break-of-day

Sings through the heart as through the hills—

New spirit and new day are born—

Yea, in our souls great suns arise

With flame more glorious than the morn

Lit with sun-centred skies!

O we have watched the blossoms slip

Through hills of sunniest silent green,

And when at morn the bluebirds drip

Dew on wet logs, our eyes have seen—

Yea, marked the unmowed meadow tremble

Through a million blades of grass new-born—

Yea, heard the birds of song assemble

The beauty of the morn!

But there is one thing I have seen

That shall be held within the heart,

When all that deepens into green

Or blooms in bright blue shall depart—

It was a hill that blossomed rich

With buds of an all-lovelier hue

Than the wild spring-things that bewitch

Each year our souls anew!

Lo, in the park, and up the lawn,

And laughing in the leafiness,

And fresh with all the fragrant dawn,

And dancing in gay gala dress,

Our city children loosed to skies,

A thousand little souls laid bare

To all the gales of Paradise

That wandered through their hair.

O loveliness more absolute

Than bird or bough or beast or bud,

O pure sweet splendors that transmute

May’s unsoul’d marvellous full flood

Into a something lit with God!

O gazing where they danced and ran

I knew then why earth’s blossoming sod

Had given birth to man!