May Is A Pious Fraud
AY is a pious fraud of the almanac.
A ghastly parody of real
Shaped out of snow and breathed with eastern wind;
Or if, o'er-confident, she trust the date,
And, with her handful of anemones,
Herself as shivery, steal into the sun,
The season need but turn his hour-glass round,
And Winter suddenly, like crazy Lear,
Reels back, and brings the dead May in his arms,
Her budding breasts and wan dislustred
With frosty streaks and drifts of his white
All overblown.
Then, warmly walled with books,
While my wood-fire supplies the sun's defect,
Whispering old forest-sagas in its dreams,
I take my May down from the happy
Where perch the world's rare song-birds in a row,
Waiting my choice to open with full breast,
And beg an alms of springtime, ne'er
Indoors by vernal Chaucer, whose fresh
Throb thick with merle and mavis all the years.
James Russell Lowell
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