A Spring View
| Tu Fu (c. 750, trans. Witter Bynner, 1920) | |
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Though a country be sundered, hills and rivers endure; And spring comes green again to trees and grasses Where petals have been shed like tears And lonely birds have sung their grief. ...After the war-fires of three months, One message from home is worth a ton of gold. ...I stroke my white hair. It has grown too thin To hold the hairpins any more. |
Sonnet 98
| by William Shakespeare (1609) | |
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From you have I been absent in the spring When proud-pied April, dress’d in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, That heavy Saturn laugh’d and leap’d with him. Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue, Could make me any summer’s story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; They were but sweet, but figures of delight, Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. Yet seem’d it winter still, and you away, As with your shadow I with these did play. |
The Spring
| by Thomas Carew (1640) | |
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Now that the winter’s gone, the earth hath lost Her snow-white robes; and now no more the frost Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream Upon the silver lake or crystal stream: But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth, And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree The drowsy cuckoo and the humble-bee. Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring, In triumph to the world, the youthful spring: The valleys, hills, and woods in rich array Welcome the coming of the long’d-for May. Now all things smile: only my love doth lower, Nor hath the scalding noon-day sun the power To melt that marble ice, which still doth hold Her heart congeal’d, and makes her pity cold. The ox, which lately did for shelter fly Into the stall, doth now securely lie In open fields; and love no more is made By the fire-side, but in the cooler shade Amyntas now doth with his Chloris sleep Under a sycamore, and all things keep Time with the season: only she doth carry June in her eyes, in her heart January. |
To Spring
| William Blake (1783) | |
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O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down Through the clear windows of the morning, turn Thine angel eyes upon our western isle, Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring! The hills tell one another, and the listening Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turn’d Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth And let thy holy feet visit our clime! Come o’er the eastern hills, and let our winds Kiss thy perfumèd garments; let us taste Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls Upon our lovesick land that mourns for thee. O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put Thy golden crown upon her languish’d head, Whose modest tresses are bound up for thee. |
Spring Quiet
| Christina Rossetti (1847) | |
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Gone were but the Winter, Come were but the Spring, I would go to a covert Where the birds sing. Where in the whitethom Singeth a thrush, And a robin sings In the holly-bush. Full of fresh scents Are the budding boughs Arching high over A cool green house: Full of sweet scents, And whispering air Which sayeth softly: “We spread no snare; “Here dwell in safety, Here dwell alone, With a clear stream And a mossy stone. “Here the sun shineth Most shadily; Here is heard an echo Of the far sea, Though far off it be.” |
Pictures by Marcus Stone
