Reverdie

Rejoice. The Spring has brought an end to numbing cold
And thrusts the grasses through the mellow earth.
Now jonquils bloom their week, and turn to brown
and hares abandon burrows filled with kits.
The skunks emerge to die along the roads,
the starlings fail to save their chicks from crows
while rabbits savage seedlings newly bloomed
and hail beats blossoms from the apple trees.
Rejoice, all things: rejoice as sun returns
and clouds of flies are born to feed the larks.
Now moths will batter on the windowpane;
the sleeping spiders wake and stretch their webs
To wrap the butterfly along the path.
Now foxes feast anew on baby mice
and lilacs weigh their spindly branches down
with swollen blossoms dripping with perfume.
Rejoice: the peace of winter now recedes
and deadly to the infants comes the spring.