"The Miracle"

Spring is here, Suh-puh-ring is here.
Life is skittles and....

No, wait - that's not what I want to talk about!

I ran across the following poem last fall, whilst following up a post at Language Log. It (the poem, that is) was written by a Canadian woman named Isabel Ecclestone Mackay (1875-1928); the poem comes from a book called Fires of Driftwood, which is available on-line from Gutenberg.

The Miracle

There's not a leaf upon the tree
To show the sap is leaping,
There's not a blade and not an ear
Escaped from winter's keeping--
But there's a something in the air
A something here, a something there,
A restless something everywhere--
A stirring in the sleeping!

A robin's sudden, thrilling note!
And see--the sky is bluer!
The world, so ancient yesterday,
To-day seems strangely newer;
All that was wearisome and stale
Has wrapped itself in rosy veil--
The wraith of winter, grown so pale
That smiling spring peeps through her!

(Fires of Driftwood, by Isabel Ecclestone Mackay; McClelland & Stewart, Limited, Toronto, 1922.)

(I'd meant to post this last week - the first day of spring - but the library closed for Good Friday. I still think that sounds like a church-and-state violation....)


Click on the "Poetry Friday" button at left for this week's round-up, which is hosted at Cuentecitos. (Susan, of Susan Writes, has done a round-up of previous round-ups here.)