May, In Green, the Colour of Our Hope

Waterway, Amsterdam, NL

  
Praise God to-day His choice hath been 
To clothe the lovely world in green, 
To-day when every grass-blade shows 
More finely than the opening rose: 

To-day when chestnut leaves half-spread 
Feed the starved soul with daily bread, 
When poplar-trees are emerald spears, 
And thorn-trees bring the happy tears. 

What other colours, rose or white, 
Should so support us, so delight? 
What blues or violets so brim o'er 
The cup of sweets to hold no more? 

Year after year when May comes in, 
To clothe the tender world in green, 
And set the fairy arches up 
In green, the colour of our hope, 

When every branch begins to blow 
Lightly as to an emerald snow, 
I praise God that He chose the green 
To wrap our lovely mother in. 

- Katharine Tynan Hinkson (1859-1931)