Spring Song "You see how snowy-white Soracte stands, and how the suffering trees now hold back the burden, and the cold rivers are sharply frozen." (Horace, Ode I.9) As every wind stirs creaking limbs And dogwood bursts its myth-soiled bloom, Soracte-like the cliff walls jut, Abruptly miming horatian mood. Though forest burn with vital juice And fiery torment of pulsing cells Driven sunward by a mindless urge, As Orpheus' head sought Arethuse, The murdered mouth still screaming song, There is a peace in springtime wood But peace besmudged by forge below That burns in soil and seeker's bones.