The March wind leaping on the skies
Like lion, like lamb, like lion, spies
A frail lady, pale as the snow,
Lying late where mayflowers grow.
Has David found my secret out
And picked my flowers ahead of me?
Yes, David smelt your mayflowers out,
But he's at the bottom of the sea.
David and the last Snow ship
Went down in 1850's gale.
Five lots of Snow children have picked
Since then your flowers pink and pale.
Mercy me! how can that be?
You've slept a century in the pines.
Who's swept the rooms and scrubbed the floor?
Great-great-grand-nieces. The floor shines.
They are cleaning house today.
Mother Snow is full of spring;
Big Girl, Little Girl, Middle-Sized
Are painting and are papering.
Spinster Aunt is polishing
The birthday cup that bears your name.
The whole house snows with feather beds;
All March months are all the same.
Bachelor Uncle finds no place
Where he can sit in peace and dirt.
Little Boy's wading thawing brooks
And getting sopping to his shirt.
Big Boy's taking his first shave,
And his mind is in a whirl;
He has your mayflowers in a cup
Ready to take to his best girl.
Woodchuck's up and wide awake,
He has his back door nearly done.
Hound Dog lies a dead dog now
Sopping up the first warm sun.
Father's mending the line fence,
Middle Boy's holding the barbed wire.
Grandpa's burning junipers
And half the pasture is on fire.
The cow's are restless in the shed,
They smell the grass by the southern ledge;
Sounds are falling from the sky,
Wild geese fly northward in their wedge.
Mother cooks your split-pea soup
Around a ripe old green ham bone,
With onions, all day's slowest heat;
The family'll eat it till they groan.
All is as it always was.
Sleep again, frail Ann,
No need to worry over flowers
Nor worry over a man.
Other girls and other men
Carry on your name;
The family's all new faces now,
But it's still the same.
Strangers now with your sweet face
Relive your fragile hours;
Snows no century can change
Pick snows of your mayflowers.