Witchwork

Powers of earth and powers of air

Are all abroad; the night is quick

With strange and subtile sorceries,

Bred of the storm, and swarming thick

As bees about a blooming branch,

Honey dripping, dew besprent,

Steeped in sunshine underneath

The blue of some great morning's tent.

Each enchantment of the sphere,

Blown from the sea and blown from shore,

Works its wild will and wizardry

While darkness wraps the gay uproar,

Till rosy dawn shall set the spell;

When, lo! the bare boughs of yestreen

Confess the magic of the March,

And wave such veils of callow green

As clad, in the old mystic tale,

The rods that Jannes and Jambres throw,

To break in blossom as they fall

Before the feet of Pharaoh!

For the fierce tempest, with its shock

Of wind and sleet that midnight cloaks,

Like some old thaumaturge who makes

A mighty marvel, now evokes,—

The violet on her dewy locks,

The sunlight on her lifted wing,

The clouds of incense floating by,—

The Apparition of the Spring!