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 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; 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, 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.
Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs-- To the silent wilderness Where the soul need not repress Its music, lest it should not find 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! 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, 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, 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, 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 In the universal Sun.
