ith impatience.

I wish it were spring, thundering
delicate, tender spring.
I wish these brittle, frost-lovely flowers of pas-
sionate, mysterious corruption
were not yet to come still more from the still-
flickering discontent.

Oh, in the spring, the bluebell bows him down for
very exuberance,
exulting with secret warm excess,
bowed down with his inner magnificence!

Oh, yes, the gush of spring is strong enough
to toss the globe of earth like a ball on a water-jet
dancing sportfully;
as you see a tiny celluloid ball tossing on a squint
of water
for men to shoot at, penny-a-time, in a booth at a
fair.

The gush of spring is strong enough
to play with the globe of earth like a ball on a
fountain;
At the same time it opens the tiny hands of the
hazel
with such infinite patience.

The power of the rising, golden, all-creative sap
could take the earth
and heave it off among the stars, into the in-
visible;
the same sets the throstle at sunset on a bough
singing against the blackbird;
comes out in the hesitating tremor of the primrose,
and betrays its candour in the round white straw-
berry flower,
is dignified in the foxglove, like a Red-Indian
brave.

Ah come, come quickly, spring!
Come and lift us towards our culmination, we
myriads;
we who have never flowered, like patient cactuses.
Come and lift us to our end, to blossom, bring us
to our summer
we who are winter-weary in the winter of the world.
Come making the chaffinch nests hollow and cosy,
come and soften the willow buds till they are
puffed and furred,
then blow them over with gold.
Come and cajole the gawky colt's-foot flowers.

Come quickly, and vindicate us
against too much death.
Come quickly, and stir the rotten globe of the
world from within,
burst it with germination, with world anew.
Come now, to us, your adherents, who cannot
flower from the ice.
All the world gleams with the lilies of Death the
Unconquerable,
but come, give us our turn.
Enough of the virgins and lilies, of passionate,
suffocating perfume of corruption,
no more narcissus perfume, lily harlots, the blades
of sensation
piercing the flesh to blossom of death.
Have done, have done with this shuddering,
delicious business
of thrilling ruin in the flesh, of pungent passion,
of rare, death-edged ecstasy.
Give us our turn, give us a chance, let our hour
strike,
O soon, soon!

Let the darkness