FROM AN OLD RITUAL

O dwellers in the dust, arise,
My little brothers of the field,
And put the sleep out of your eyes!
Your death-doom is repealed.

Lift all your golden faces now,

You dandelions in the ground!
You quince and thorn and apple bough,
Your foreheads are unbound.

O dwellers in the frost, awake,
My little brothers of the mould!

It is the time to forth and slake
Your being as of old.

You frogs and newts and creatures small
In the pervading urge of spring,
Who taught you in the dreary fall

To guess so glad a thing?

From every swale your watery notes,
Piercing the rainy cedar lands,
Proclaim your tiny silver throats
Are loosened of their bands.

O dwellers in the desperate dark,
My brothers of the mortal birth,
Is there no whisper bids you mark
The Easter of the earth?

Let the great flood of spring's return