One time, in Springtime, God made a perfect day,
he work me in the morning and hid my cares away,
He woke me with the thrush's song, and with the linnet's trills;
He took me in His hand and set me on the hills.
He set me on the hills, on the topmost hill of all,
And I heard the morning winds and far sea-breakers call,
I heard the winds a-singing from the lands and waters met,
And, I live a thousand years, oh, I never can forget.
He touched my eyes with gladness, with balm of morning dews,
On the topmost rim He set me 'mong the Hills of Santa Cruz.
I saw the sunlit ocean sweep, I saw the value below—
The Vale of Santa Clara in a sea of blossomed snow.
It was Springtime and joy-time, and God had filled His loom
With woven plains of poppies and orchards all abloom,
With web of gold and purple in the fields and uplands green,
And the white woof of the blossoms that stretched away between.
The bluest sky that every shone stretched over me that day,
And I could see the ships that rode upon St. Francis Bay;
I could see the ships a-sailing with pennants flung elate;
I could see them win the harbor and pass the Golden Gate.
Up from the valley, with song and laughter, rose
The voice of happy peoples from the blossomed orchard snows,
The Spring's clear soprano from the gleaming swaying trees,
And the basso crescendo of the surf-breaking seas.
One time, in Springtime, God made a perfect day,
He woke my soul to see it, and loosed my heart in play,
With the lark's song He woke me and the gull's distant call,
And He set me on the hills, on the farthest hill of all.
Bright days of pleasure and gray days of pain—
I've had my willing share of both, and so I may again;
'Tis not for me to make them, 'tis not for me to choose,
But, oh, that day of splendor in the hills of Santa Cruz.
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