Spring is in the Valley, sap and budding time,
A thousand voices rally into sheer, clear rhyme;
Swallows are a-wheeling, robins chant in glee,
Nature all a-reeling in her glad, mad spree.
And itching’s in the foot o’ me to up and be away,
But I must earn my mulligan and twenty cents a day.
The snows of Coquihalla adown the pass are hurled
With thunder of Valhalla from the old, bold world;
Pipings from the river, stirring in the grass,
All my heart a-quiver as the grey geese pass.
And older than the heart o’ me the urge upon me then!
But freedom’s for the furtive folk, and not for sons of men.
Bluebirds softly crooning ‘neath the mountain ledge,
Peeper-frogs are tuning in the rank, dank sedge;
Chirpers in the pasture, meadow-larks above
Trilling songs of rapture and of fleet, sweet love.
They’re singing of another spring, and other love to me;
But girls forget the sweetheart who must live on charity.
Whispers in the bracken, rabbits are at play;
Mountain shadows slacken every new noon-day,
Summer will be on me, before the spring imparts
Pulsings of her ecstacy to young strong hearts.
There’s laughter on the beaches where youth and freedom play,
But I’m a slave to mulligan and twenty cents a day.
(Burnett A. Ward)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Man Poems, World Poems, Time Poems, Nature Poems, Spring Poems, Summer Poems, Charity Poems, Romantic Love Poems, Madness Poems, Slavery PoemsBased on Keywords: ecstacy, tuning, itching, valhalla, trilling, a-quiver, noon-day, bluebirds, pipings, mulligan, meadow-larks