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Title: A May-Day Carol
Author: Alfred Noyes [
More Titles by Noyes]
What is the loveliest light that Spring
Rosily parting her robe of grey
Girdled with leaflet green, can fling
Over the fields where her white feet stray?
What is the merriest promise of May
Flung o'er the dew-drenched April flowers?
Tell me, you on the pear-tree spray--
Carol of birds between the showers.
What can life at its lightest bring
Better than this on its brightest day?
How should we fetter the white-throat's wing
Wild with joy of its woodland way?
Sweet, should love for an hour delay,
Swift, while the primrose-time is ours!
What is the lover's royallest lay?--
Carol of birds between the showers.
What is the murmur of bees a-swing?
What is the laugh of a child at play?
What is the song that the angels sing?
(Where were the tune could the sweet notes stay
Longer than this, to kiss and betray?)
Nay, on the blue sky's topmost towers,
What is the song of the seraphim? Say--
Carol of birds between the showers.
Thread the stars on a silver string,
(So did they sing in Bethlehem's bowers!)
Mirth for a little one, grief for a king,
Carol of birds between the showers.
[The end]
Alfred Noyes's poem: May-Day Carol
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