| BEST and brightest, come away,— | |
| Fairer far than this fair day, | |
| Which, like thee, to those in sorrow | |
| Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow | |
| To the rough year just awake | 5 |
| In its cradle on the brake. | |
| The brightest hour of unborn Spring | |
| Through the winter wandering, | |
| Found, it seems, the halcyon morn | |
| To hoar February born; | 10 |
| Bending from heaven, in azure mirth, | |
| It kiss'd the forehead of the earth, | |
| And smiled upon the silent sea, | |
| And bade the frozen streams be free, | |
| And waked to music all their fountains, | 15 |
| And breathed upon the frozen mountains, | |
| And like a prophetess of May | |
| Strew'd flowers upon the barren way, | |
| Making the wintry world appear | |
| Like one on whom thou smilest, dear. | 20 |
| |
| Away, away, from men and towns, | |
| To the wild woods and the downs— | |
| To the silent wilderness, | |
| Where the soul need not repress | |
| Its music, lest it should not find | 25 |
| An echo in another's mind, | |
| While the touch of Nature's art | |
| Harmonizes heart to heart. | |
| |
| Radiant Sister of the Day | |
| Awake! arise! and come away! | 30 |
| To the wild woods and the plains, | |
| To the pools where winter rains | |
| Image all their roof of leaves, | |
| Where the pine its garland weaves | |
| Of sapless green, and ivy dun, | 35 |
| Round stems that never kiss the sun; | |
| Where the lawns and pastures be | |
| And the sandhills of the sea; | |
| Where the melting hoar-frost wets | |
| The daisy-star that never sets, | 40 |
| And wind-flowers and violets | |
| Which yet join not scent to hue | |
| Crown the pale year weak and new; | |
| |
| When the night is left behind | |
| In the deep east, dim and blind, | 45 |
| And the blue noon is over us, | |
| And the multitudinous | |
| Billows murmur at our feet, | |
| Where the earth and ocean meet, | |
| And all things seem only one | 50 |
| In the universal Sun. | |
| |
