Sensing these sweet renewals through the earth,
Where seed and soil most happily conspire
To furnish forth gay rituals of mirth,
Of shaken leaves and pointed blooms of fire,—
I wonder then that thoughtful man, alone,
Walks darkly and all puzzled with a doubt,
Bewildered, and in truth, half-fearful grown
Of wild, wild earth and April's joyous rout.

When we are dust again with soil and seed,
With happy earth through many a happy Spring,
We yet may learn that joy was all our need,—
That man's long thought is but a broken wing,
Of less account, as things may come to pass,
Than Spring's first robin breasting through the grass.