I send thee pansies while the year is young

And a proverb haunts my mind As a spell is cast, "The mill cannot grind With the water that is past."

But the waiting time, my brothers, Is the hardest time of all.

The pure, the beautiful, the bright, That stirred our hearts in youth, The impulse to a wordless prayer, The dreams of love and truth, The longings after something lost, The spirit’s yearning cry,

The sunn must lend his goulden beames, Soft windes their breath, green trees their shade, Sweete fields their flowers, cleare springs their streams, Ere such another smyle bee made.

Thou little bird, thou dweller by the sea, Why takest thou its melancholy voice, And with that boding cry Why o'er the waves dost fly? O, rather, bird, with me Through the fair land rejoice!

We'll sport and be free with Moll, Betty, and Dolly, Have oysters and lobsters to cure melancholy: Fish-dinners will make a lass spring like a flea, Dame Venus, love's lady, Was born of the sea.