The Spell of Times Long Past

Yes, I will love thee 
when the sun throws light upon a thousand flowers
When winter’s biting breath is gone
And spring leads on the smiling hours
 
Yes, I will love thee
When spring leads on the smiling hours.
And I will call thee beautiful
More beautiful than May’s bright wreaths
Though all the air with sweets be full
Though every bird his soft tone breathes.
 
And I will love thee 
When the earth is bright with summer’s rich attire
When morn to seas of gold give birth
And eve to brighter wreathes of fire
When the broad moon and burning stars
Are riding through the lucid aire
On snow-white flee-cy clouds for cars
Then will I dream
 
Then will I dream of thee, my fair
I’ll love thee when the autumn winds
Sweep headily the misty plain
When the last flowers it cold bed finds
And birds are far away again
 
And I will shield thee
When the breath of winter beats upon the earth
And I will shield thee 
When the breath of winter beats upon the earth
 
And we will laugh at nature’s death
Content will love and festive mirth.
The tale and sportive song shall be
Only of soft and fairy things
Young love shall rest with us
And we will give Old Time
His silken wings.

How still it is here in the woods. The trees
Stand motionless, as if they did not dare
To stir, lest it should break the spell. The air
Hangs quiet as spaces in a marble frieze.
Even this little brook, that runs at ease,
Whispering and gurgling in its knotted bed,
Seems but to deepen with its curling thread
Of sound the shadowy sun-pierced silences.

Sometimes a hawk screams or a woodpecker
Startles the stillness from its fixed mood
With his loud careless tap. Sometimes I hear
The dreamy white-throat from some far off tree
Pipe slowly on the listening solitude
His five pure notes succeeding pensively.

The flower lives on the prairie
The wind in the sky
I am here, my beloved
The wind and the flower
 
The crane hides in the sand-hills
Where does the wolverine hide?
I am here, my beloved
Heart’s-blood on the feathers
 
The foot caught in the trap
The crane hides in the sand-hills,
Where does the wolverine hide?
The wind and the flower.
 
The foot caught – Oh
 
Take the flower in your hand
The wind in your nostrils;
Take the flower in your hand
I’m here, my beloved
 
Release, release the captive
Release the captive
Heal the wound under the feathers
Heal the wound under the feathers
 
Flower, Wind, Sky, Prairie
 
Heart’s-blood on the feathers
The flower lives on the prairie
The wind in the sky
I am here, my beloved
The wind and the flower