Spring Cleanings by Ruth Collie

With brooms of every length and weight, of every style and varying / price, from early morning until late she swept to make the house look / nice. With powders, soaps, and elbow grease, she scoured each pot, / she scraped each pan; she ironed away each curtain crease, and soon / the house was spick and span. With sudden showers every day that / spoilt our hats and damped our mirth, did April, in time-honoured / way, begin to spring-clean mother Earth. She brightly smiled and / then she cried and washed away the dust with rain; the trees and / flowers we thought had died, awoke, and blossomed forth again. With / thoughts of gladness and of cheer, with thankfulness and heartfelt / praise for this renascence of the year, I let my eyes on nature gaze. / And while I looked at sky and earth, I had an impulse to be kind, to / do some service of real worth -- spring-cleaning thus my heart and mind!