Two spring poems

by Doris Kerns Quinn

Spring Night

The perfumed, heavy-scented spring
Sighs to the jewelled night;
The chandeliers of heaven swing
From breathless, dizzy height.
The tender leaves, so recent born,
Are whispering to each other
The sacred secrets of the morn
And of the earth, their mother.
The cherry blossoms, white as brides,
Stir shyly in the breeze,
And from the shadowy silence glides
Fragrance of lilac trees.

Tomorrow—Spring!

Tomorrow the magnolia tree
Will tell her favorite story:
Tomorrow she will sing aloud
In fragrant glory.

Her buds are fragile pointed swords
Piercing winter’s shield—
Tomorrow she will triumph
And the old foe will yield.

—both published in Clear Shining After Rain, 1948