The leaves dance, the leaves sing, The leaves dance in the breath of the Spring.
I bid them dance, I bid them sing, For the limpid glance Of my ladyling;For the gift to the Spring of a dewier spring, For God's good grace of this ladyling!
I know in the lane, by the hedgerow track, The long, broad grasses underneath Are warted with rain like a toad's knobbed back;But here May weareth a rainless wreath.
In the new-sucked milk of the sun's bosom Is dabbled the mouth of the daisy-blossom;The smouldering rosebud chars through its sheath;The lily stirs her snowy limbs, Ere she swims Naked up through her cloven green, Like the wave-born Lady of Love Hellene;And the scattered snowdrop exquisite Twinkles and gleams, As if the showers of the sunny beams Were splashed from the earth in drops of light.
Everything That is child of Spring Casts its bud or blossoming Upon the stream of my delight.
Their voices, that scents are, now let them upraise To Sylvia, O Sylvia, her sweet, feat ways!
Their lovely mother them array, And prank them out in holiday, For syllabling to Sylvia;And all the birds on branches lave their mouths with May, To bear with me this burthen, For singing to Sylvia.
2.
While thus I stood in mazes bound Of vernal sorcery, I heard a dainty dubious sound, As of goodly melody;Which first was faint as if in swound, Then burst so suddenly In warring concord all around, That, whence this thing might be, To see The very marrow longed in me!
It seemed of air, it seemed of ground, And never any witchery Drawn from pipe, or reed, or string, Made such dulcet ravishing.
'Twas like no earthly instrument, Yet had something of them all In its rise, and in its fall;As if in one sweet consort there were blent Those archetypes celestial Which our endeavouring instruments recall.
So heavenly flutes made murmurous plain To heavenly viols, that again - Aching with music--wailed back pain;Regals release their notes, which rise Welling, like tears from heart to eyes;And the harp thrills with thronging sighs.
Horns in mellow flattering Parley with the cithern-string:-Hark!--the floating, long-drawn note Woos the throbbing cithern-string!
Their pretty, pretty prating those citherns sure upraise For homage unto Sylvia, her sweet, feat ways:
Those flutes do flute their vowelled lay, Their lovely languid language say, For lisping to Sylvia;Those viols' lissom bowings break the heart of May, And harps harp their burthen, For singing to Sylvia.
3.
Now at that music and that mirth Rose, as 'twere, veils from earth;And I spied How beside Bud, bell, bloom, an elf Stood, or was the flower itself 'Mid radiant air All the fair Frequence swayed in irised wavers.
Some against the gleaming rims Their bosoms prest Of the kingcups, to the brims Filled with sun, and their white limbs Bathed in those golden lavers;Some on the brown, glowing breast Of that Indian maid, the pansy, (Through its tenuous veils confest Of swathing light), in a quaint fancy Tied her knot of yellow favours;Others dared open draw Snapdragon's dreadful jaw:
Some, just sprung from out the soil, Sleeked and shook their rumpled fans Dropt with sheen Of moony green;Others, not yet extricate, On their hands leaned their weight, And writhed them free with mickle toil, Still folded in their veiny vans:
And all with an unsought accord Sang together from the sward;Whence had come, and from sprites Yet unseen, those delights, As of tempered musics blent, Which had given me such content.
For haply our best instrument, Pipe or cithern, stopped or strung, Mimics but some spirit tongue.
Their amiable voices, I bid them upraise To Sylvia, O Sylvia, her sweet, feat ways;Their lovesome labours laid away, To linger out this holiday In syllabling to Sylvia;While all the birds on branches lave their mouths with May, To bear with me this burthen, For singing to Sylvia.
4.
Next I saw, wonder-whist, How from the atmosphere a mist, So it seemed, slow uprist;And, looking from those elfin swarms, I was 'ware How the air Was all populous with forms Of the Hours, floating down, Like Nereids through a watery town.
Some, with languors of waved arms, Fluctuous oared their flexile way;Some were borne half resupine On the aerial hyaline, Their fluid limbs and rare array Flickering on the wind, as quivers Trailing weed in running rivers;And others, in far prospect seen, Newly loosed on this terrene, Shot in piercing swiftness came, With hair a-stream like pale and goblin flame.
As crystelline ice in water, Lay in air each faint daughter;Inseparate (or but separate dim)
Circumfused wind from wind-like vest, Wind-like vest from wind-like limb.
But outward from each lucid breast, When some passion left its haunt, Radiate surge of colour came, Diffusing blush-wise, palpitant, Dying all the filmy frame.
With some sweet tenderness they would Turn to an amber-clear and glossy gold;Or a fine sorrow, lovely to behold, Would sweep them as the sun and wind's joined flood Sweeps a greening-sapphire sea;Or they would glow enamouredly Illustrious sanguine, like a grape of blood;Or with mantling poetry Curd to the tincture which the opal hath, Like rainbows thawing in a moonbeam bath.
So paled they, flushed they, swam they, sang melodiously.
Their chanting, soon fading, let them, too, upraise For homage unto Sylvia, her sweet, feat ways;Weave with suave float their waved way, And colours take of holiday, For syllabling to Sylvia;And all the birds on branches lave their mouths with May, To bear with me this burthen, For singing to Sylvia.
5.
Then, through those translucencies, As grew my senses clearer clear, Did I see, and did I hear, How under an elm's canopy Wheeled a flight of Dryades Murmuring measured melody.
Gyre in gyre their treading was, Wheeling with an adverse flight, In twi-circle o'er the grass, These to left, and those to right;All the band Linked by each other's hand;Decked in raiment stained as The blue-helmed aconite.
