The Triumph of the May

^fe r THE TRIUMPH OF THE MAY By Bertha A. Kleinman The Improvement Era Prize Jubilee Poem. I am the May — the Triumph of the May — And every lilt is pulse of me, forsooth, Each strophic flight of bird and roundelay, Is voice of mine in ecstasy of Youth! I am the Springtime sunning down the land, With Hope attuned to every starling's song, With balmy blossoms snowing from my hand To grace the sward where children's footsteps throng. A dryad flinging vesture to the tree Of jewels spun from April's chrismal tears, Where every leaf in magic palmistry Indites the vision of the promised years. In every copse the holy interlude Of prismic dawn and glinting, golden day Proclaims for me, in blest beatitude, My sovereign right to childhood's Realm of Play. The winter's rust may stain the lily's sheen, The petals tarnish and the stalks grow old, But Springtime turns the page of God's routine, And lo! His Grace hath turned the shard to gold! The yester-rose lies severed and adrift, The sear leaves tremble at the night's compline, Behold! the matin cleaves the cope arift, And all the wonder of the May is mine! Her triumph spun in fragile monocarp, Redeems the waste of fell and moor and fen, Let bleak December twang her rusted harp, Beneath, the rhime-frost earth is young again. The doubts of men may mar life's symphony, But flooding all is God's- great sun of Truth, And heir to Godship and his imagery — . I am the May in renaissance of Youth. Mesa, Arizona. f&~- *