Dear Readers, in previous years I’ve put together a collection of autumn poems, but in a strange oversight I’ve managed to forget all about spring. No more! Here are a few of my favourites, do feel free to let me know which ones you like.
First up, William Wordsworth, in a pensive mood. He’s not wrong, though.
Lines Written in Early Spring
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.
Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:—
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.
The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.
If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?
And I rather love this one….
“Feuerzauber”
BY LOUIS UNTERMEYER
I never knew the earth had so much gold—
The fields run over with it, and this hill
Hoary and old,
Is young with buoyant blooms that flame and thrill.
Such golden fires, such yellow—lo, how good
This spendthrift world, and what a lavish God!
This fringe of wood,
Blazing with buttercup and goldenrod.
You too, beloved, are changed. Again I see
Your face grow mystical, as on that night
You turned to me,
And all the trembling world—and you—were white.
Aye, you are touched; your singing lips grow dumb;
The fields absorb you, color you entire . . .
And you become
A goddess standing in a world of fire!
I confess to a great fondness for Billy Collins. Some people complain that he’s ‘too accessible’ or ‘too sentimental’ but sometimes he just nails it. See what you think.
Today
BY BILLY COLLINS
If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,
a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies
seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking
a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,
releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage
so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting
into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.
And if that was too sentimental for you, can I recommend Edna St Vincent Millay? The last few lines have me chortling every single time. She rather reminds me of ‘Johnny Nice Painter’ from ‘The Fast Show’. If you haven’t met him before, have a look here.
Spring
BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
And here’s a little gem by Thomas Nashe (1593 – 1607), He was a prolific writer of prose and poetry but is best known for this one, and for ‘In the Time of Plague‘, and two poems could not be more different in tone. Let’s stick to this one for now. It’s so full of joy!
Spring, the sweet spring
BY THOMAS NASHE
Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king,
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,
In every street these tunes our ears do greet:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to witta-woo!
Spring, the sweet spring!
Incidentally, the four birds singing are the cuckoo, the nightingale (jug-jug which seems a little prosaic), pu-we (the peewit) and the tawny owl (to witta-woo). How happy I would be to hear them all in one place!
Common Cuckoo – Photo by Mike McKenzie, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
And finally, with no apologies, here is the poem that I chose when we interred my Mum under the cherry tree in the graveyard of St Andrew’s Church in Milborne St Andrew. I loved it then, and I love it now.
The Trees (1974)
PHILIP LARKIN
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
I am a fan of Billy Collins, but I must say, my favorite here is the Edna St Vincent Millay poem. Most poems about spring gush about joy and hope, so it’s refreshing to read her rather exasperated take on the season!
Here is a poem I like:
Snowdrops
Louise Gluck
I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn’t expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring –
afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy
in the raw wind of the new world.
And I always like Linda Pastan.
Spring
by Linda Pastan
Just as we lose hope
she ambles in,
a late guest
dragging her hem
of wildflowers,
her torn
veil of mist,
of light rain,
blowing
her dandelion
breath
in our ears;
and we forgive her,
turning from
chilly winter
ways,
we throw off
our faithful
sweaters
and open
our arms.
~ from Heroes in Disguise
While this is not really a spring poem, it is one I think about frequently, in these past years that have been rather wintery in their darkness. It has some language of spring.
Citizen of Dark Times
by Kim Stafford
Agenda in a time of fear: Be not afraid.
When things go wrong, do right.
Set out by the half-light of the seeker.
For the well-lit problem begins to heal.
Learn tropism toward the difficult.
We have not arrived to explain, but to sing.
Young idealism ripens into an ethical life.
Prune back regret to let faith grow.
When you hit rock bottom, dig farther down.
Grief is the seed of singing, shame the seed of song.
Keep seeing what you are not saying.
Plunder your reticence.
Songbird guards a twig, its only weapon a song.
—from Wild Honey, Tough Salt
Oh good grief! This is wonderful, thank you so much. ‘We have not arrived to explain, but to sing’. ‘Keep seeing what you are not saying’. So much to love here…
Thank you for sharing those, what an enjoyable read. My favourites are the Wordsworth and the Larkin – I’d like that read at my funeral too. Another wonderful spring poem, though about earlier spring than now, is Edward Thomas’s Thaw
Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed
The speculating rooks at their nests cawed
And saw from elm-tops, delicate as flowers of grass,
What we below could not see, Winter pass.
I always wonder why ‘speculating’ though
I hadn’t come across that one, Sarah! And yes, speculating seems a strange choice.
I love the idea of the inhabitants of the snow globe being released.
Me too!
Johnny Nice Painter had me really laughing out loud, I can certainly see why those last lines remind you of him.
So glad you enjoyed him! I’d forgotten how good The Fast Show often was.