Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost <br />Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost <br />Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream <br />Upon the silver lake or crystal stream; <br />But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth, <br />And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth <br />To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree <br />The drowsy cuckoo and the humble-bee. <br />Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring <br />In triumph to the world the youthful spring. <br />The valleys, hills, and woods in rich array <br />Welcome the coming of the long'd-for May. <br />Now all things smile; only my love doth lour; <br />Nor hath the scalding noonday sun the power <br />To melt that marble ice, which still doth hold <br />Her heart congeal'd, and makes her pity cold. <br />The ox, which lately did for shelter fly <br />Into the stall, doth now securely lie <br />In open fields; and love no more is made <br />By the fireside, but in the cooler shade <br />Amyntas now doth with his Chloris sleep <br />Under a sycamore, and all things keep <br />Time with the season; only she doth carry <br />June in her eyes, in her heart January.<br /><br />Thomas Carew<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-spring-2/
