Lines in Late March
From Lyric and Dramatic Poems.Macmillan Company, 1926.
I whistle; why not?
Have I not seen the first strips of green winding up the
sloughs?
Have I not heard the meadow-lark?
I have looked into soft blue skies and
have been uplifted!
Where are the doubts and the dark ideas I entertained?
What have I caught from the
maple-buds that changes me?
Or was it the meadow-lark— or the blue sky— or the strips
of
green,
The green that winds up the sloughs?
I sought the dark and found much of it.
Is there in truth much darkness?
Have the
meadow-larks lied to me?
Have the green grass and blue sky testified falsely?
I want to trust the sky and the grass!
I want to believe the songs I hear from the
fenceposts!
Why should a maple-bud mislead me?
Reproduced from Lyric
and Dramatic Poems by John G. Neihardt by
permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 1926 Macmillan
Company.
Copyright renewed 1954 by John G. Neihardt.