The Spring - Richard Mitchley

The Spring by Thomas Carew

Now that the winter's gone the earth hath lost

Her snow-white robes and now no more the frost

Candies the grass or casts an icy cream

Upon the silver lake or crystal stream;

But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth

And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth

To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree

The drowsy cuckoo and the humble bee

Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring

In triumph to the world the youthful spring

The valleys hills and woods in rich array

Welcome the coming of the long'd-for May

Now all things smile; only my love doth lour;

Nor hath the scalding noonday sun the power

To melt that marble ice which still doth hold

Her heart congeal'd and makes her pity cold

The ox which lately did for shelter fly

Into the stall doth now securely lie

In open fields; and love no more is made

By the fireside but in the cooler shade

Amyntas now doth with his Chloris sleep

Under a sycamore and all things keep

Time with the season; only she doth carry

June in her eyes in her heart January