'Spring-germs, spring-germs, <br />I charge you by your life, go back to death. <br />This glebe is sick, this wind is foul of breath. <br />Stay: feed the worms. <br /> <br />'Oh! every clod <br />Is faint, and falters from the war of growth <br />And crumbles in a dreary dust of sloth, <br />Unploughed, untrod. <br /> <br />'What need, what need, <br />To hide with flowers the curse upon the hills, <br />Or sanctify the banks of sluggish rills <br />Where vapors breed? <br /> <br />'And -- if needs must -- <br />Advance, O Summer-heats! upon the land, <br />And bake the bloody mould to shards and sand <br />And dust. <br /> <br />'Before your birth, <br />Burn up, O Roses! with your dainty flame. <br />Good Violets, sweet Violets, hide shame <br />Below the earth. <br /> <br />'Ye silent Mills, <br />Reject the bitter kindness of the moss. <br />O Farms! protest if any tree emboss <br />The barren hills. <br /> <br />'Young Trade is dead, <br />And swart Work sullen sits in the hillside fern <br />And folds his arms that find no bread to earn, <br />And bows his head. <br /> <br />'Spring-germs, spring-germs, <br />Albeit the towns have left you place to play, <br />I charge you, sport not. Winter owns to-day, <br />Stay: feed the worms.'<br /><br />Sidney Lanier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/tyranny-6/
