Grand Haven Daily Tribune  May 1, 1901

A Greeting to Spring.

―

BY DAVID FLETCHER HUNTON.

―

Come, lovely maid with lilies fair,

Let thy sweet smiles upon us fall;

Come, wake the music of the air,

Old winter’s ruins now repair,

Comb out the rushes’ pale green hair,

And all thy livery gay recall.

Come, and caress Ǽolus great,

And from that giant, grace obtain;

Come , fair Aurelia; do not wait,

But come in all thy royal state,

Of all the flowery May relate;

And we will hail thy Queenly reign!

Bring out the busy bee that sips

The honeyed sweets from leaf and vine;

Come, kiss the maple’s red’ning lips,

Send up the sap to branches tips,

‘Till each green leaf from prison slips,

To bask beneath thy smiles divine.

Lift up the violet’s lips of blue,

To drink more azure from the skies:

Come, bathe the cowslip’s face in dew,

And where last year’s Arbutus grew,

Bring forth its petals fresh and new,

And paint them with thy choicest dyes!

Come, with thy rosy bosom’d hours,

And let fair Venus train appear;

Come, free the souls of buried flowers―

Clothe all the naked woods, and bowers―

Send from the clouds refreshing showers,

And wake the purple budding year.

Beneath thy wand Earth wakes from sleep,

And all is musical with song!

Down from the hills and mountains steep,

The unchained brooks and rivers sweep

Into the lakes and oceans deep,

In devious currents, swift and strong.

The grass revived by sun and shower,

Grows rapidly ‘neath April’s feet;

New life is springing every hour,

Upward from death’s relentless power,

To live again in bud and flower,

A type of Resurrection sweet!

Under thy sweet auspicious reign,

The seeds now die into a new life;

Just as we die, to live again,

So they spring up on hill and plain

To bud and bloom ‘neath sun and rain,

In hues of god-like splendor rife;

O type of that transforming Spring,

When “Weakness shall be raised in power”

When Death shall lose its mortal sting;

And we arise on spirit wings

Into the Palace of the King,

Where life immortal crowns the hour!

Grand Haven, Mich., April A. D. 1901