"The Awakening"

The Awakening

I will take heart again; the spring 

Comes over Sehome hill, 

And like tall, splintered spears of gold 

The firs stand, soft and still; 

Happily in its moist, brown throat 

Chatters a loosened rill. 

Below, across the violet sea, 

With glistening, restless wings, 

The seabirds cleave the purple air 

In white and endless rings; 

Somewhere, within an open space, 

One of God’s own larks sings. 

The warm breath of the waking earth 

Curls up from myriad lips, 

And who has loved and lost now drinks 

In deep and trembling sips, 

With memory’s passionate pulse astir 

From heart to finger-tips. 

The ferns lift delicate veiny palms 

In dimples of the hills, 

The spendthrift hyacinth’s perfume 

Along the pure air spills; 

There is a breathing, faint and far, 

From the dark throats of the mills. 

The spider flings a glittering thread 

From dewy blade to blade, 

A robin drops on bended wing, 

Near me, yet unafraid; 

The early frosts have taken rout 

Before the red sun’s raid. 

Behold, the earth is glad again, 

And she has taken heart, 

And in her swelling, fruitful breast, 

God’s own love-flowers start. 

(Lord, may I not take courage, too? 

I and my old self part?) 

 

Yea, when the birds grow dumb again 

With pure delights that thrill 

Their rapt and innocent souls, till they 

Have not desire or will 

For song, or sun, or anything 

But passion deep and still, 

I will go into the dim wood 

And lie prone on the sod, 

My breast close to the warm earth-breast, 

Prostrate, alone with God, 

Of all his poor and useless ones, 

The poorest, useless clod; 

And I will pray (so earnestly 

He cannot help but hear): 

“Lord, Lord, let me take heart again, 

Let my faith shine white and clear, 

Let me awaken with the earth, 

And leave my old self here!” 

"The Awakening" as it appears in Ella Higginson's When the Birds Go North Again (1898).