Under the snow, in the dark and the cold,
A pale little sprout was humming;
Sweetly it sang, ’neath the frozen mould,
Of the beautiful days that were coming.

“How foolish your songs!” said a lump of clay;
“What is there, I ask, to prove them?
Just look at the walls between you and the day,
Now, have you the strength to move them?”

But under the ice and under the snow
The pale little sprout kept singing,
“I cannot tell how, but I know, I know,
I know what the days are bringing.

“Birds, and blossoms, and buzzing bees,
Blue, blue skies above me,
Bloom on the meadows and buds on the trees
And the great glad sun to love me.”

A pebble spoke next: “You are quite absurd,”
It said, “with your song’s insistence;
For I never saw a tree or a bird,
So of course there are none in existence.”

“But I know, I know,” the tendril cried,
In beautiful sweet unreason;
Till lo! from its prison, glorified,
It burst in the glad spring season.