Spring in the South (Later Poems)

Now in the oak the sap of life is welling, / Tho' to the bough the rusty leafage clings; / Now on the elm the misty buds are swelling; / Every little pine-wood grows alive with wings; / Blue-jays are fluttering, yodeling and crying, / Meadow-larks sailing low above the faded grass, / Red-birds whistling clear, silent robins flying, -- / Who has waked the birds up? What has come to pass?

Last year's cotton-plants, desolately bowing, / Tremble in the March-wind, ragged and forlorn; / Red are the hillsides of the early ploughing, / Gray are the lowlands, waiting for the corn.