Seasonal: Spring has Sprung

Seasonal:

Spring has Sprung

A potpourri of poetry and prose

MARKING THE CHANGING SEASONS

This page is updated throughout each season

WEATHERS

This is the weather the cuckoo likes,

And so do I;

When showers betumble the chestnut spikes,

And nestlings fly:

And the little brown nightingale bills his best,]

And they sit outside at ‘The Travellers’ Rest’,

And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest,

And citizens dream of the south and west,

And so do I.

This is the weather the shepherd shuns,

And so do I;

When beeches drip in browns and duns,

And thresh, and ply;

And hill-hid tides throb, throe on throe,

And meadow rivulets overflow,

And drops on gate-bats hang in a row,

And rooks in families homeward go,

And so do I.

By Thomas Hardy

Extract from 'From Larkrise to Candleford' by Flora Thompson

The opening of chapter XIII ‘May Day’

Ater the excitement of the concert came the long winter months, when snowstorms left patches on the ploughed fields, like scrapings of sauce on left-over pieces of Christmas pudding, until the rains came and washed them away and the children, carrying old umbrellas to school, had them turned inside out by the wind, and cottage chimneys smoked and washing had to be dried indoors. But at last came spring and spring brought May Day, the greatest day in the year from the children’s point of view.

The May garland was all that survived there of the old May Day festivities. The maypole and the May games and May dances in which whole parishes had joined had long been forgotten. Beyond giving flowers for the garland and pointing out how things should be done and telling how they had been done in their own young days, the old people took no part in the revels.

For the children as the day approached all hardships were forgotten and troubles melted away. The only thing that mattered was the weather. ‘Will it be fine?’ was the constant question, and many an aged eye was turned skyward in response to read the signs of wind and cloud. Fortunately, it was always reasonably fine. Showers there were, of course, at that season, but never a May Day of hopelessly drenching rain, and the May garland was carried in procession every year throughout the eighties.

THE HAPPY BIRD

The happy white throat on the sweeing bough

Swayed by the impulse of the gadding wind

That ushers in the shower of April – now

Singeth right joyously and now reclined

Croucheth and clingeth to her moving seat

To keep her hold – and till the wind for rest

Pauses – she mutters inward melodys.

That seem her hearts rich thinkings to repeat

And when the branch is still – her little breast

Swells out in raptures gushing symphonys

And then against her blown wing softly prest

The wind comes playing an enraptured guest

This way and that she swees – till gusts arise

More boisterous in their play – when off she flies.

By John Clare

PRIVACY OF RAIN

Rain, a plump splash

on tense, bare skin.

Rain. All the May leaves

run upward, shaking.

Rain. A first touch

at the nape of the neck.

Sharp drops kick the dust, white

downpours shudder

like curtains, rinsing

tight hairdos to innocence.

I love the privacy of rain,

the way it makes things happen

on verandahs, under canopies

or in the shelter of trees

as a door slams and a girl runs out

into the black-wet leaves.

By the brick wall an iris

sucks up the rain

like intricate food, its tongue

sherbetty, furred.

Rain. All the May leaves

run upward, shaking.

On the street bud-silt

covers the windscreens.

By Helen Dunmore

Extract from 'Diary of a Nobody' by George and Weedon Grossmith

Mr Pooter’s diary entries on April 26th and 27th.

April 25. In consequence of Brickwell telling me his wife was working wonders with the new Pinkford’s enamel pain, I determined to try it. I bought two tins of red on my way home. I hastened through tea, went into the garden and painted some flower-pots. I called out Carrie, who said: ‘You’ve always got some new-fangled craze’; but she was obliged to admit that the flower-pots looked remarkably well. Went upstairs into the servant’s bedroom and painted her washstand, towel-horse and chest of drawers. To my mind it was an extraordinary improvement, but as an example of the ignorance of the lower classes in the matter of taste, our servant, Sarah, on seeing them, evinced no sign of pleasure, but merely said ‘she thought they looked very well as they was before’.

April 26. Got some more red enamel pain (red, to my mind, being the best colour), and painted the coalscuttle, and the backs of our Shakespeare, the binding of which had almost worn out.

April 27. Painted the bath red, and was delighted with the result. Sorry to say Carrie was not, in fact we had a few words about it. She said I ought to have consulted her, and she had never heard of such a thing as a bath, being painted red. I replied: ‘It’s merely a matter of taste.’

SPRING

Nothing is so beautiful as spring –

When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;

Thrush’s eggs look like low heavens, and thrush

Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring

The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;

The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush

The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush

With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?

A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning

In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,

Before it cloud, Christ, lord and sour with sinning,

Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy.

Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

By Gerard Manley Hopkins

Extract from ‘Crampton Hodnet’ by Barbara Pym

Chapter 8 Spring, the Sweet Spring

Spring came early that year, and the sun was so bright that it made all the North Oxford residents feel as shabby as the still leafless trees, so that they hurried to Elliston’s, Webber’s and Badcocks, intending to by jumper suits and spring tweeds in bright, flowerlike colours to match the sudden impulse which had sent them there. But when they found themselves in the familiar atmosphere of the shop, they forgot the sun shining outside and the thrilling little breezes that made everyone want to be in love, and the young lady assistant forgot them too, because, although she may have felt them walking down the Botley Road with her young man on a Sunday afternoon, they were not the kinds of things one thought about in business hours. And so, after a quick, practised glance at the customer, out would come the old fawn, mud, navy, dark brown, slate and clerical greys, all the colours they always had before and without which they would hardly have felt like themselves. It would probably be raining tomorrow, and grey, fawn or bottle green was suitable for all weathers, whereas daffodil yellow, leaf green, hyacinth blue or coral pink would look unsuitable and show the dirt.

But one afternoon Miss Morrow went impulsively to Elliston’s and bought herself a dress of tender leaf green and hid it in her wardrobe among her old, drab things, where it might have to wait many weeks before she had the courage to wear it.

Miss Morrow loved the Parks, especially in fine weather when they were full of people. In the spring there was a faintly ridiculous air about them, like Mendelssohn’s Spring Song, but, as in the song, there was also a prim and proper Victorian element which chastened the fantasy and made it into something quaint and formal, like a ballet. Dons striding along with walking sticks, wives in Fair Isle jumpers coming low over their hips, nurses with prams and governesses with intelligent children asking ceaseless questions in their clear, fluty voices. And then there were the clergymen, solitary bearded ones reading books, young earnest ones like chickens just out of the egg, discussing problems which had nothing to do with the sunshine or the yellow-green leaves uncurling on the trees. There were undergraduates too, and young women with Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader or lecture notebooks under their arms and lovers, clasping each other’s fingers and trying to find secluded paths where thy might kiss. But for Miss Morrow the lovers were only a minor element; the North Oxford and clerical elements were stronger and gave more character to the ballet. She felt that even she and Miss Doggett could be principals in it, together with all the other old ladies who were being walked or wheeled about by their companions to get the fresh air.

TO DAFFODILS

Fair daffodils, we weep to see

You haste away so soon:

As yet the early-rising sun

Has not attained his noon

Stay, stay,

Until the hasting day

Has run

But to the evensong;

And, having prayed together, we

Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay as you;

We have as short a spring;

As quick a growth to meet decay,

As you or anything.

We die,

As your hours do, and dry

Away

Like to the summer’s rain;

Or as the pears of morning’s dew,

Ne’er to be found again.

By Robert Herrick

“HOPE” IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without words –

And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –

And sore must be the storm –

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chilliest land

And on the strangest Sea

Yet – never – in Extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

By Emily Dickinson

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