  When the fragrance of the purple and lavender lilac-bloom Meets the sweet distilled aroma from the plum and apple-trees, And the dainty scent of violets amid the garden-gloom, Where’s the music of the hum and drone of pollen-painted bees, Then my soul takes up its harp, which long upon the willows hung, And attunes it to the gladness that is floating in the air, For it is in lilac-blossom-time that everything grows young, And the heart of man is lighter, and has little less of care. In the lilac-blossom-time it seems, the brown thrush blithest sings, And the wood-dove cooes the deepest from a breast brimful with love, And the Oriole’s glad music clearest ’mongst the branches rings, To its mate that sits abrooding on the nest upon the bough; And the Whip-poor-will is calling from the woodlands dark, at eve, With a zest which makes the farmer feel that even the night hath song, And in the cool of day he thinks, it is quite good to live, In the lilac-blossom-time, methinks, are children happiest, Since with that blossoms’ coming a great liberty draws nigh, The days of school are over, and they feel supremely blest In the days mid nature’s glories, ’neath the blue and open sky, Or to lie beneath the lilacs with a story-book in hand, Reading perfume into fancies, Puck and fairies twixt each line, Till the heart is with them dancing in a happy wonderland, While the shadows of the after-noon with lilac hues combine. In the lilac-blossom-time the lovers often fondly meet, And drink the blossom’s odor, a true potency for dreams, And oftest when the evening-dew makes it a tenfold sweet, A-trembling like a tear of joy within the clear moonbeam, The youth in his new happiness a prince of kingdoms is, The maiden is a being fair, as from some other clime, And heaven itself is upon earth in that pure, binding kiss, |
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