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I love to see the leaves arrive,
the new green spangling the blue,
when branches, struggling alive,
remake my window’s skyward view;
or, looking down, to see the soil
pierced by the grassy vanguard’s blades
and know that germination’s toil
will end in flowered accolades.
And when I hear the shackled stream,
shedding its icy iron chains,
begin to live its dormant dream
and sing its rivulet refrains,
a hope wells up that there will come
another spring of Christendom.