The Broken Wing/The Coming of Spring
The Coming of Spring
O Spring! I cannot run to greet
Your coming as I did of old,
Clad in a shining veil of gold,
With champa-buds and blowing wheat
And silver anklets on my feet.
Your coming as I did of old,
Clad in a shining veil of gold,
With champa-buds and blowing wheat
And silver anklets on my feet.
Let others tread the flowering ways
And pluck new leaves to bind their brows,
And swing beneath the quickening boughs
A bloom with scented spikes and sprays
Of coral and of chrysoprase.
And pluck new leaves to bind their brows,
And swing beneath the quickening boughs
A bloom with scented spikes and sprays
Of coral and of chrysoprase.
But if against this sheltering wall
I lean to rest and lag behind,
Think not my love untrue, unkind,
Or heedless of the luring call
To your enchanting festival.
I lean to rest and lag behind,
Think not my love untrue, unkind,
Or heedless of the luring call
To your enchanting festival.
O Sweet! I am not false to you—
Only my weary heart of late
Has fallen from its high estate
Of laughter and has lost the clue
To all the vernal joy it knew.
Only my weary heart of late
Has fallen from its high estate
Of laughter and has lost the clue
To all the vernal joy it knew.
There was a song I used to sing—
But now I seek in vain, in vain
For the old lilting glad refrain—
I have forgotten everything—
Forgive me, O my comrade Spring!
But now I seek in vain, in vain
For the old lilting glad refrain—
I have forgotten everything—
Forgive me, O my comrade Spring!
Vasant Panchami Day, 1916