WHAT subtle pulse is in thy blood,
Poor bird, that teaches thee to sing,
That tells thee that the fair-eyed Spring
Again to these rough shores is wooed?

How dost thou know that skies are fair,
Close pent within a curtained room?
How canst thou argue from thy gloom,
The light and rapture of the air?

I know that home-bound swallows flit
Across the opal of the sky.
My brain is servant to my eye;
But how hadst thou a hint of it?

How canst thou know that ash-buds swell,
That violets peep in sweet surprise,
By what sense dost thou recognize
The spring-song of the crocus-bell?

I am upbraided by thy voice:
For, barred from all that makes the Spring
To human thought a blessed thing,
Thou dost unwearyingly rejoice.

I learn a lesson, bird, from thee;
Shame, were my song less glad than thine,
When Spring, with all her wealth, is mine,
And the wide world's aglow for me.