Several Spring Poems

I guess it's a truism that poetry is not about something but rather about the poet's perception of something. Glancing at the several poems below, all about spring, does show that each poet has a different perception about Spring. Even the titles suggest those varying viewpoints.


Metamorphosis

Always it happens when we are not there--
The tree leaps up alive into the air,
Small open parasols of Chinese green
Wave on each twig. But who has ever seen
The latch sprung, the bud as it burst?
Spring always manages to get there first.

Lovers of wind, who will have been aware
Of a faint stirring in the empty air,
Look up one day through a dissolving screen
To find no star, but this multiplied green,
Shadow on shadow, singing sweet and clear.
Listen, lovers of wind, the leaves are here!

-- May Sarton --





Loveliest of Trees,
The Cherry Now

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

-- A. E. Houseman --



Cherry Blossoms

Cherry blossoms--
lights
of years past.

-- Basho --



In Time of Silver Rain

In time of silver rain
The earth
puts forth new life again,
Green grasses grow
And flowers lift their heads,
And over all the plain
The wonder spreads
Of life,
Of life,
Of life!

In time of silver rain
The butterflies
Lift silken wings
To catch a rainbow cry,And trees put forth
New leaves to sing
In joy beneath the sky
As down the roadway
Passing boys and girls
Go singing, too,
In time of silver rain
When spring
And life
Are new.

-- Langston Hughes --


All poems come from the following collection:

Art and Nature: An Illustrated Anthology of Nature Poetry
Selected by Kate Farrell

It is a collection of seasonal poetry and paintings from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is a remarkable anthology.

Serendipity

Here's an old favorite that I haven't read in years. And, now that I've just encountered my 73rd birthday, it's becoming a bit more personal.


With Rue My Heart Is Laden

With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had.
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.




And another which I hadn't read before but which also seems to fit a melancholy mode.


Far In A Western Brookland

Far in a western brookland
That bred me long ago
The poplars stand and tremble
By ponds I used to know.

There, in the windless nighttime,
The wanderer, marveling why,
Halts on the bridge to hearken
How soft the poplars sight.

He hears: long since forgotten
In fields where I was known,
Here I lie down in London
And turn to rest alone.

There by the starlit fences,
The wanderer halts and hears
My soul that lingers sighing
About the glimmering weirs.


Both poems are by Alfred E. Houseman (1856--1936). They seem more appropriate for a late gloomy fall day, rather than a blistering hot day in summer.