Or, after all, perhaps there’s none: 
Suppose there is no secret after all,
But only just my fun. 
To-day’s a nipping day, a biting day; 10
In which one wants a shawl,
A veil, a cloak, and other wraps: 
I cannot ope to every one who taps,
And let the draughts come whistling through my hall;
Come bounding and surrounding me,
Come buffeting, astounding me,
Nipping and clipping through my wraps and all. 
I wear my mask for warmth:  who ever shows
His nose to Russian snows
To be pecked at by every wind that blows? 20
You would not peck?  I thank you for good will,
Believe, but leave that truth untested still.

Spring’s an expansive time:  yet I don’t trust
March with its peck of dust,
Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers,
Nor even May, whose flowers
One frost may wither through the sunless hours.

Perhaps some languid summer day,
When drowsy birds sing less and less,
And golden fruit is ripening to excess, 30
If there’s not too much sun nor too much cloud,
And the warm wind is neither still nor loud,
Perhaps my secret I may say,
Or you may guess.

ANOTHER SPRING

If I might see another Spring
  I’d not plant summer flowers and wait: 
I’d have my crocuses at once,
My leafless pink mezereons,
  My chill-veined snowdrops, choicer yet
  My white or azure violet,
Leaf-nested primrose; anything
  To blow at once, not late.

If I might see another Spring
  I’d listen to the daylight birds 10
That build their nests and pair and sing,
Nor wait for mateless nightingale;
  I’d listen to the lusty herds,
  The ewes with lambs as white as snow,
I’d find out music in the hail
  And all the winds that blow.

If I might see another Spring—­
  Oh stinging comment on my past
That all my past results in ’if’—­
  If I might see another Spring 20
I’d laugh to-day, to-day is brief;
I would not wait for anything: 
  I’d use to-day that cannot last,
  Be glad to-day and sing.

A PEAL OF BELLS

Strike the bells wantonly,
  Tinkle tinkle well;
Bring me wine, bring me flowers,
  Ring the silver bell. 
All my lamps burn scented oil,
  Hung on laden orange-trees,
Whose shadowed foliage is the foil
  To golden lamps and oranges. 
Heap my golden plates with fruit,
  Golden fruit, fresh-plucked and ripe; 10
  Strike the bells and breathe the pipe;
Shut out showers from summer hours—­
Silence that complaining lute—­
  Shut out thinking, shut out pain,
  From hours that cannot come again.