Although the weather where I reside is denying the fact we have passed through winter and arrived in spring at last. The season when, according to Robert Burns
Now Nature hangs her mantle green
On every blooming tree,
And spreads her sheets o' daises white
Out o'er the grassy lea
According to the lines from his poem about the ill-fated Mary Queen of Scots. http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/365-Robert-Burns-Lament-Of-Mary--Queen-Of-Scots--On-The-Approach-Of--Spring
As Tennyson said in his poem Locksley Hall http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/2057-Alfred-Lord-Tennyson-Locksley-Hall
In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;
In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
Each line speaks of the changes that take place as we move from the bleakness of winter to the lightness of summer. Changes on the plants and animals, changes in the weather, changes in ourselves.
We each respond to changes in different ways. William Blake happily welcomes the new season in his lines
Come o'er the eastern hills, and let our winds
Kiss thy perfumed garments; let us taste
Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
Upon our love-sick land that mourns for thee.
From his poem entitled simply “To Spring” http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/83-William-Blake-To-Spring
Even Robert Burns whilst writing sadly of his love for Peggy in his poem “Now spring has clad her groves in green” http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/371-Robert-Burns-Now-Spring-Has-Clad-The-Grove-In-Green is forced to acknowledge this change from melancholy to joy with the lines
While ilka thing in nature join
Their sorrows to forego,
In short everything is changing and we all hope it is changing for the better. That has been the message of poets for centuries. Even Homer writing nearly three thousand years ago says
As the dun nightingale, daughter of Pandareus,
sings in the early spring from her seat in shadiest covert hid,
and with many a plaintive trill pours out the tale
and
the spring flowers, bunched in knots and clusters
and
in the time of spring when the pails are drenched with milk
in his epic poems “The Odyssey” and “The Iliiad” http://oldpoetry.com/oauthor/show/Homer writes off the positive aspects of this opening season of the year.
Spring is youth following on from winter’s age in Schiller’s words
Welcome, gentle Stripling,
Nature's darling thou!
From his poem “To The Spring” http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/27251-Friedrich-von-Schiller-To-The-Spring
And this is echoed in Katherine Mansfield’s poem “The very early Spring”
Now the sun walks in the forest,
He touches the bows and stems with his golden fingers;
They shiver, and wake from slumber
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/1294-Katherine-Mansfield-Very-Early-Spring
Even the mundane act of turning the clocks forward to welcome the sunlight does not go unmarked by the poets.
This is the time we dock the night
Of a whole hour of candlelight;
as Katharine Tynan writes in her poem “Turn O’ The Year” http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/53878-Katharine-Tynan-Turn-O--The-Year
In the countryside and cities the Spring has, thank heavens, arrived and hopefully the summer is on its way.
And whilst you are waiting for the summer here are a few more of the many poems on spring to be found on Allpoetry’s sister site Oldpoetry.
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/371-Robert-Burns-Now-Spring-Has-Clad-The-Grove-In-Green
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/1271-Katherine-Mansfield-Spring-Wind-in-London
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/41414-William-Barnes-The-Spring
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/show/115080-William-Watson-April
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/9351-Alice-Meynell-In-Early-Spring
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/35980-Robert-Browning-Pippa-s-Song
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/show/115082-Thomas-Edward-Brown-Lynton-Verses
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/298-Robert-Browning-Home-Thought-wbr-s--From-Abroad
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/41487-Francis-Thompson-A-May-Burden
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/109928-Moira-O-Neill-Corrymeela
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/show/115084-Elizabeth-Barrett-Browning-The-Sweetness-Of-England
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/show/115086-Edith-Nesbit-England
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