False Spring
O BIRDS, ’twas not well done of you!
O flowers and breeze, right well ye knew
The weary glamour that the spring
Had laid for me on every thing.
’Twas but to bring me back again
The memory of the olden pain,
You lured me out with songs of birds,
With violet breath and fair false words!
For lo! my feet had hardly passed
The woven band of flowerage, cast
Betwixt the meadows and the trees,
When, in the bird-songs and the breeze,
Another strain was taken up;
And out of every blue-bell’s cup
The mocking voices sang again
The olden songs of love and pain.
The flowers did mimic the old grace;
The wan white windflowers wore her face;
And in the stream I heard her words;
Her voice came rippling from the birds.
Dead love, I saw thy form anew
Bend down among the violets blue,
And, like a mist, the memory
Of all the past came back to me.
John Payne.