New England Diary

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'Hover by this garden bed'

"Wind,'' from TacuinTum Sanitas, a Medieval handbook.


"Ho, wind of March, speed over sea,
     From mountains where the snows lie deep
     The cruel glaciers threatening creep,
And witness this, my jubilee!

Roar from the surf of boreal isles,
     Roar from the hidden, jagged steeps,
     Where the destroyer never sleeps;
Ring through the iceberg’s Gothic piles!

Voyage through space with your wild train,
     Harping its shrillest, searching tone,
     Or wailing deep its ancient moan,
And learn how impotent your reign.

Then hover by this garden bed,
     With all your willful power, behold,
     Just breaking from the leafy mould,
My little primrose lift its head!''

-- "March,'' by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard