More than 20 days have passed since the vernal equinox, and we are now into Spring. That, if I may say, presents “the poetry thing.” Perhaps a thousand poems and sonnets have been written for this season, most an artful blend of emotion, light, and reason.
Selecting from a sprawling field, waving, colorful, alive, let us pick just five. Winter now past, spring dashes on, a merry mix of birds, words, and soon fawns.
Robert Frost honored timeless things, rock walls, character traits, recurring winters, the heart’s flutter and sigh, and the butterfly. This is “Blue-Butterfly Day.”
“It is blue-butterfly day here in spring,
And with these sky-flakes down in flurry on flurry
There is more unmixed color on the wing
Than flowers will show for days unless they hurry.
But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:
And now from having ridden out desire
They lie closed over in the wind and cling
Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.”
Emily Dickinson was lighter, quick of pen, done, and then …This is “A Little Madness in the Spring.”
“A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown –
Who ponders this tremendous scene –
This whole Experiment of Green –
As if it were his own!”
Then there is Spring reflected on by an Oxford don, J.R.R. Tolkien. This is his “All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter.”
“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
Lighter still, like dawn upon the window sill is Christina Rosetti’s simple ode, “Spring.”
“There is no time like Spring,
When life’s alive in everything,
Before new nestlings sing,
Before cleft swallows speed their journey back
Along the trackless track –
God guides their wing,
He spreads their table that they nothing lack, –
Before the daisy grows a common flower
Before the sun has power
To scorch the world up in his noontide hour…”
But lightest of all, laughter in his voice, every word a careful choice, was the wide awake William Blake, his also just “Spring.”
“Sound the flute!
Now it’s mute!
Bird’s delight,
Day and night,
Nightingale,
In the dale,
Lark in sky,—
Merrily,
Merrily merrily, to welcome in the year…”
And there you have it five flowers picked from the field, held together in one hand, nothing super, nothing grand, just a bit of “the poetry thing” for Spring.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!
I like Robert Charles. I very much hope he wins. Maine needs a really good conservative governor for a change. Someone with intelligence, integrity and a sense of whimsy and humor.
Poetry has a place of great importance in the vast array of human endeavors and a great description of why that is so is found in the first paragraph of this article ( about the poems and sonnets about Spring ) – ” most an artful blend of emotion ,light and reason.” Poetry can be a form of reasoning that involves more of the imagination than the way Mathematics is a form of reasoning which involves knowing when to apply the right rules or laws However , sometimes using imagination can be helpful in mathematics. Poetry awakens ideas that can be a surprise to those who are writing it and that is something to think about ! So, this article is appreciated RBC for several reasons as mentioned above. Something else worth adding is the way poetry is understood by different people in different circumstances and that makes sense .If only parts of a particular poem occupy part of the memory it may be a vital bit of thought that can make a huge difference in some ways. I think of the great advantages of poetry as helping to fulfill what is needed to be done in life – it adds to the adventure .
Thanks for all the lovely poems!!
My favorite spring poem is from e e cummings: ” In the spring when all the world is mud-lucious….” What an apt description!
Applause! Loved it!
My favorite, by Gerard Manley Hopkins, begins:
“Nothing is so beautiful as spring
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush,
Thrushes’ eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing….”
spring has sprung
the grass has rised
i wonder where all the birdies is
the birds is on the wing
now isn’t that absurd
everybody knows the wings is on the bird!
CASTRONOVO