Easter-Tide Poem by Eliza Allen Starr

With the spring come happy voices
On the street,
Merry greetings, infant laughter
Gay and sweet.

With the spring what rush of waters
To the sea!
Brooks run races down the mountains
In their glee.

With the spring come happy odors;
Skies how blue!
Grass- you almost see it growing-
Tipped with dew.

With the spring, on brookside, hillside,
In the glen,
Tangled woodlands, wastes of prairies
Far from men-

Everywhere are wild flowers springing,
Banks of bloom;
Snowy clusters break the bearded
Forest's gloom.

With the spring, a low, sweet twitter
Thrills the leaves,
Where the robin at her nest-work
Deftly weaves.

With the spring! God knows- God only-
That dear pain,
Pressing hearts, whose mortal treasure
Comes again

Not with leaf-buds, or the sprouting
Of the grain,
When its tender blade clothes softly
All the plain.

Yet with spring, than spring more precious,
Comes a hope:
For this flesh an expectation,
Strong to cope

With thee, Death, its deathless pulses
Beating life,
Fresh as Heaven's eternal spring-time,
Which thy strife,

Blessèd Christ, in dying won us;
Life, through death,
Bringing to this weary mortal
Yielding breath.

With the spring, then, happy nature
Keeps with me,
In this hope of resurrection,
Jubilee.

Blossoms, song-birds, all spring voices
The world wide,
Chant thy solemn Paschal blessings,
Easter-tide.