All faintly through my soul to-day, As from a bell that far away Is tinkled by some frolic fay, Floateth a lovely chiming. Thou magic bell, to many a fell And many a winter-saddened dell Thy tongue a tale of Spring doth tell, Too passionate-sweet for rhyming.
Chime out, thou little song of Spring, Float in the blue skies ravishing. Thy song-of-life a joy doth bring That's sweet, albeit fleeting. Float on the Spring-winds e'en to my home: And when thou to a rose shalt come That hath begun to show her bloom, Say, I send her greeting!
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📖 About this poem
This little poem arrives like its own subject: a chime drifting in from somewhere distant and half-imagined. Lanier, translating Herder, builds the whole first stanza around a single image, a bell rung by a "frolic fay," its sound too sweet and strange to be pinned down in tidy rhyme. That's a nice trick for a poem about spring itself, which always feels like it's arriving before you can quite describe it. The second stanza turns outward, asking the song to travel on the spring winds all the way home, and to greet a particular rose just opening into bloom. It's a small, tender gesture, love and longing folded into a wish about weather and flowers. The music helps too: short lines, quick rhymes, a bell-like insistence that makes the poem feel almost sung. What keeps it alive today is that plainness of feeling. Everyone has wanted to send a message on nothing but wind and hope.
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