poem #31

March Music

by Evelyn Underhill

All down the windy woods, along the throbbing hedge,

And in the starting sedge,

Yea, in all choirs and places where they sing,

I hear its growing cadences that ring;

Noblest of the processionals of earth,

The great Vexilla Regis of the spring:

And topping the soft hill

With sudden joy of emerald fluttering,

Against the sky's bright edge

I see the mighty banners of the King.

Yet not unheralded

The hosts of life to victory are led:

Lo! near at hand

His little band

Of harbingers a subtle music make;

Tight scrolls crisp-rolled

Pricking from out the mould

Along the margins of the dusky brake.

Come, put your ear

To the brown earth, and hear

The glad green shout

With which each baby leaf thrusts out

Toward the clear:

Leaps to achieve its part

In the symphonic poem that breaks from Nature's heart.

Exultant, sacred mirth

That waits upon the vernal ecstasy

Of birth!

Why does she joy?

To what supreme employ

Destines the budding spray?

Does she,

As some proud mother, see

Entangled in her children's downy hair

Meshed glories that declare

An unguessed empery

Of life to be?

The catkins tasselled grey,

Enaureoled

In heavenly gold,

The wonder of the thorn —

Are these the earnests of a distant morn

That shall the woodland dress

With a dread fruitfulness?

Ah, yes!

As in old time

Joy was august, sublime,

And priests could then afford

To dance before the Lord,

Plaiting the patterns sweet

With swift enraptured feet

That worshipped in the ways of metric loveliness,

Then at the altar made their sacrifice complete:

So does the vernal play

Perpetually invite

The deep interior sight

Unto the shrine

Which makes all growth divine.

So does the flowery mist

That lies upon the ground

Prepare a Victim's way;

And every forest sound

Proclaim a Eucharist.

Lo! on those eager branches shall be hung

That Life of which the woods have ever sung;

Making themselves soft harps for the hand o' the rain

To whisper of his pain,

And, 'neath the poignant bowing of the wind

Subdued to move,

Crying to all mankind

The secret of the sacrament of love.

Yea! from a Tree

God shall shine out at thee;

For this doth Nature grow,

To this the kingly banners forward go.