Cold is genial and dear. 
As Southern wrath to Northern right
Is but straw to anthracite;
As in the day of sacrifice,
When heroes piled the pyre,
The dismal Massachusetts ice
Burned more than others’ fire,
So Spring guards with surface cold
The garnered heat of ages old: 
Hers to sow the seed of bread,
That man and all the kinds be fed;
And, when the sunlight fills the hours,
Dissolves the crust, displays the flowers.

The world rolls round,—­mistrust it not,—­
Befalls again what once befell;
All things return, both sphere and mote,
And I shall hear my bluebird’s note,
And dream the dream of Auburn dell.

When late I walked, in earlier days,
All was stiff and stark;
Knee-deep snows choked all the ways,
In the sky no spark;
Firm-braced I sought my ancient woods,
Struggling through the drifted roads;
The whited desert knew me not,
Snow-ridges masked each darling spot;
The summer dells, by genius haunted,
One arctic moon had disenchanted. 
All the sweet secrets therein hid
By Fancy, ghastly spells undid. 
Eldest mason, Frost, had piled,
With wicked ingenuity,
Swift cathedrals in the wild;
The piny hosts were sheeted ghosts
In the star-lit minster aisled. 
I found no joy:  the icy wind
Might rule the forest to his mind. 
Who would freeze in frozen brakes? 
Back to books and sheltered home,
And wood-fire flickering on the walls,
To hear, when, ’mid our talk and games,
Without the baffled north-wind calls. 
But soft! a sultry morning breaks;
The cowslips make the brown brook gay;
A happier hour, a longer day. 
Now the sun leads in the May,
Now desire of action wakes,
And the wish to roam.

The caged linnet in the Spring
Hearkens for the choral glee,
When his fellows on the wing
Migrate from the Southern Sea;
When trellised grapes their flowers unmask,
And the new-born tendrils twine,
The old wine darkling in the cask
Feels the bloom on the living vine,
And bursts the hoops at hint of Spring: 
And so, perchance, in Adam’s race,
Of Eden’s bower some dream-like trace
Survived the Flight, and swam the Flood,
And wakes the wish in youngest blood
To tread the forfeit Paradise,
And feed once more the exile’s eyes;
And ever when the happy child
In May beholds the blooming wild,
And hears in heaven the bluebird sing,
“Onward,” he cries, “your baskets bring,—­
In the next field is air more mild,
And o’er yon hazy crest is Eden’s balmier Spring.”

Not for a regiment’s parade,
Nor evil laws or rulers made,
Blue Walden rolls its cannonade,
But for a lofty sign
Which the Zodiac threw,
That the bondage-days are told,
And waters free as winds shall flow. 
Lo! how all the tribes combine
To rout the flying foe. 
See, every patriot oak-leaf throws