To John Keats, Poet, At Spring Time

I cannot hold my peace, John Keats;

There never was a spring like this;

It is an echo, that repeats

My last year's song and next year's bliss.

I know, in spite of all men say

Of Beauty, you have felt her most.

Yea, even in your grave her way

Is laid. Poor, troubled, lyric ghost,

Spring never was so fair and dear

As Beauty makes her seem this year.

I cannot hold my peace, John Keats,

I am as helpless in the toil

Of Spring as any lamb that bleats

To feel the solid earth recoil

Beneath his puny legs. Spring beats

her tocsin call to those who love her,

And lo! the dogwood petals cover

Her breast with drifts of snow, and sleek

White gulls fly screaming to her, and hover

About her shoulders, and kiss her cheek,

While white and purple lilacs muster

A strength that bears them to a cluster

Of color and odor; for her sake

All things that slept are now awake.

And you and I, shall we lie still,

John Keats, while Beauty summons us?

Somehow I feel your sensitive will

Is pulsing up some tremulous

Sap road of a maple tree, whose leaves

Grow music as they grow, since your

Wild voice is in them, a harp that grieves

For life that opens death's dark door.

Though dust, your fingers still can push

The Vision Splendid to a birth,

Though now they work as grass in the hush

Of the night on the broad sweet page of the earth.

"John Keats is dead," they say, but I

Who hear your full insistent cry

In bud and blossom, leaf and tree,

Know John Keats still writes poetry.

And while my head is earthward bowed

To read new life sprung from your shroud,

Folks seeing me must think it strange

That merely spring should so derange

My mind. They do not know that you,

John Keats, keep revel with me, too.