Our spring library

A selection of poems that we think are perfect to read in spring

Carpe Diem

Build not on to-morrow, 
But seize on to-day! 
From no future borrow, 
The present to pay.

Wait not any longer
Thy work to begin; 
The worker grows stronger,— 
Be steadfast and win! 

Forbode not new sorrow— 
Bear that of to-day, 
And trust that the morrow 
Shall chase it away. 

The task of the present 
Be sure to fulfil; 
If sad, or if pleasant, 
Be true to it still.

God sendeth us sorrow 
And cloudeth our day; 
His sun on the morrow 
Shines bright on our way.
​Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862).

Discovery

Beauty walked over the hills and made them bright.
She in the long fresh grass scattered her rains
Sparkling and glittering like a host of stars,
But not like stars cold, severe, terrible.
Hers was the laughter of the wind that leaped
Arm-full of shadows, flinging them far and wide.
Hers the bright light within the quick green
Of every new leaf on the oldest tree.
It was her swimming made the river run
Shining as the sun;
Her voice, escaped from winter’s chill and dark,
Singing in the incessant lark….
All this was hers - yet all this had not been
Except ‘twas seen.
It was my eyes, Beauty, that made thee bright;
My ears that heard, the blood leaping in my veins,
The vehemence of transfiguring thought -
Not lights and shadows, birds, grasses and rains -
That made thy wonders wonderful.
For it has been, Beauty, that I have seen thee,
Tedious as a painted cloth at a bad play,
Empty of meaning and so of all delight.
Now thou has blessed me with a great pure bliss,
Shaking thy rainy light all over the earth,
And I have paid thee with my thankfulness,

John Freeman (1880-1929)

Easter

The air is like a butterfly
With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky
And sings.

Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

excerpt from Tne Task Book 1
​
Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain 
Of spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o’er, 
Conducts the eye along its sinuous course 
Delighted.  There, fast rooted in his bank, 
Stand, never overlook’d, our fav’rite elms, 
That screen the herdsman’s solitary hut; 
While far beyond, and overthwart the stream 
That as with molten glass inlays the vale, 
The sloping land recedes into the clouds; 
Displaying on its varied side the grace 
Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tow’r, 
Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells 
Just undulates upon the list’ning ear, 
Groves, heaths, and smoking villages remote. 
Scenes must be beautiful which daily view’d 
Please daily, and whose novelty survives 
Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years. 
​Praise justly due to those that I describe. 
​
William Cowper
(1731–1800)​

from The Kitten

… Doth power in varied measures dwell
All thy vagaries wild to tell?
Ah no! the start, the jet, the bound,
The giddy scamper round and round, 
With leap, and jerk, and high curvet, 
And many a whirling somerset, 
(Permitted by the modern muse
Expression technical to use.)
These mock the deftest rhymers skill, 
But poor in art, tho’ rich in will. 
The featest tumbler, stage bedight, 
To thee is but a clumsy wight,
Who every limb and sinew strains, 
To do what costs thee little pains;
For which, I trow, the gaping crowd
Requites him oft with plaudits loud. 

But, stopped the while thy wanton play,
Applauses too thy feats repay:
For then, beneath some urchin’s hand, 
With modest pride though tak’st thy stand, 
While many a stroke of fondness glides
Along thy back and tabby sides. 
Dilated swells thy glossy fur, 
And loudly sings thy busy purr; 
As, timing well the equal sound, 
Thy clutching feet bepat the ground, 
And all their harmless claws disclose,
Like prickles of an early rose;
While softly from thy whisper’d cheek, 
​Thy half-closed eyes peer, mild and meek...
Joanna Baillie 
(1762—1851)

Happy the Man

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
John Dryden (1631-1700)

Here by the Brimming April Streams
​
Here by the brimming April streams,
Here is the valley of my dreams.

Every garden place is seen
Starting up in flames of green;

Breaking forth in yellow gold
Through the blanket of the mould.

Slow unfolded, one by one,
Lantern leaves hang in the sun,

Like the butterflies of June
Weak and wet from the cocoon.
Philip Henry Savage (1868–99)

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud 

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.​
​William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

March

Now I know that Spring will come again,
Perhaps to-morrow: however late I've patience
After this night following on such a day.

While still my temples ached from the cold burning
Of hail and wind, and still the primroses
Torn by the hail were covered up in it,
The sun filled earth and heaven with a great light
And a tenderness, almost warmth, where the hail dripped,
As if the mighty sun wept tears of joy.

But 'twas too late for warmth. The sunset piled
Mountains on mountains of snow and ice in the west:
Somewhere among their folds the wind was lost,
And yet 'twas cold, and though I knew that Spring
Would come again, I knew it had not come,
That it was lost too in those mountains chill.
​
What did the thrushes know? Rain, snow, sleet, hail,
Had kept them quiet as the primroses.
They had but an hour to sing. On boughs they sang,
On gates, on ground; they sang while they changed perches
And while they fought, if they remembered to fight:
So earnest were they to pack into that hour
Their unwilling hoard of song before the moon
Grew brighter than the clouds. Then 'twas no time
For singing merely. So they could keep off silence
And night, they cared not what they sang or screamed;
Whether 'twas hoarse or sweet or fierce or soft;
And to me all was sweet: they could do no wrong.

Something they knew--I also, while they sang
And after. Not till night had half its stars
And never a cloud, was I aware of silence
Stained with all that hour's songs, a silence
Saying that Spring returns, perhaps to-morrow.
​Edward Thomas (1878-1917).

March the 3rd

Here again (she said) is March the third
And twelve hours singing for the bird
'Twixt dawn and dusk, from half past six
To half past six, never unheard.

'Tis Sunday, and the church-bells end
With the birds' songs. I think they blend
Better than in the same fair days
That shall pronounce the Winter's end.

Do men mark, and none dares say,
How it may shift and long delay,
Somewhere before the first of Spring,
But never fails, this singing day?

When it falls on Sunday, bells
Are a wild natural voice that dwells
On hillsides; but the birds' songs have
The holiness gone from the bells.

This day unpromised is more dear
Than all the named days of the year
When seasonable sweets come in,
Since now we know how lucky we are.
​Edward Thomas (1878-1917).

Robin

The robin
Enters stage right
In swift and measured flight;
Perching close by;
Haunched back, taught as a trap;
Haughty to view the scene.

Or in the wings
From high in a tall tree,
A gleaming glance of russet red
On springs greening branch,
Trilling to try its territory 
Swelling with sweet sweeping song

Jet black eyes, darting;
Always sharply watching;
A passive part, biding for a buried cue.
Let others dig the muddy plot: 
Stay set to steal a line of luscious worth - 
A soft and tasty morsel from the earth.
​Michael Lee (our Founder 1932-2012).

Spring
 
Once more the lark with song and speed
Cleaves through the dawn, his hurried bars;
Fall, like the flute of Ganymede
Twirling and whistling from the stars.
 
The primrose and the daffodil
Surprise the valleys, and wild thyme
Is sweet on every little hill,
When lambs come down at folding time.
 
In every wild place now is heard
The magpie’s noisy house, and through
The mingled tunes of many a bird
The ruffled wood-dove’s gentle coo.
 
Sweet by the river’s noisy brink
The water-lily bursts her crown,
The kingfisher comes down to drink
Like rainbow jewels falling down.
 
And when the blue and grey entwine
The daisy shuts her golden eye,
And peace wraps all those hills of mine
Safe in my dearest memory.
 
Francis Ledwidge (1887-1917)
.

Star Thought

I shall see a star tonight
From a distant mountain height;
From a city you will see
The same star that shines on me.

‘Tis not of the firmament
On a solar journey bent;
Fixed it is through time and weather;-—
‘Tis a thought we hold together.

Francis Shaw (1872-1937)
.

Tall Nettles

Tall nettles cover up, as they have done 
These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough 
Long worn out, and the roller made of stone: 
Only the elm butt tops the nettles now. 
  
This corner of the farmyard I like most:         5
As well as any bloom upon a flower 
I like the dust on the nettles, never lost 
Except to prove the sweetness of a shower.
Edward Thomas (1878-1917)

The Bird at Dawn

What I saw was just one eye
In the dawn as I was going:
A bird can carry all the sky
In that little button glowing.

Never in my life I went
So deep into the firmament.

He was standing on a tree,
All in blossom overflowing;
And he purposely looked hard at me,
At first, as if to question merrily:
‘Where are you going?’
But next some far more serious thing to say:
I could not answer, could not look away.

Oh, that hard, round, and so distracting eye:
Little mirror of all the sky!--
And then the after-song another tree
Held, and sent radiating back on me.

If no man had invented human word,
And a bird-song had been
The only way to utter what we mean,
What would we men have heard,
What understood, what seen,
Between the trills and pauses, in between
The singing and the silence of a bird?

Harold Monro (1879 -1932)

The Coin
 
Into my heart’s treasury
I slipped a coin
That time cannot take
Nor a thief purloin, ‒
Oh better than the minting
Of a gold-crowned king
Is the safe kept memory
Of a lovely thing.
 
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

The First Ploughing
 
Calls the crow from the pine-tree top
When the April air is still.
He calls to the farmer hitching his team
In the farmyard under the hill.
“ Come up,” he cries, “come out and come up,
For the high field’s ripe to till.
Don’t wait for word from the dandelion
Or leave from the daffodil.”
 
Cheeps the flycatcher ‒ “Here old earth
Warms up in the April sun;
And the first ephemera, wings yet wet,
From the mould creep one by one.
Under the fence where the flies frequent
Is the earliest gossamer spun.
Come up from the damp of the valley lands,
For here the Winter’s done,”
 
Whistles the high-hole out of the grove
his summoning loud and clear:
“Chilly it may be down your way
But the high south field has cheer.
On the sunward side of the chestnut stump
The woodgrubs wake and appear.
Come out to your ploughing, come up to your ploughing,
The time for ploughing is here.”
 
Then dips the coulter and drives the share,
And the furrows faintly steam.
The crow drifts furtively down from the pine
To follow the clanking team.
The flycatcher tumbles, the high-hole darts
In the young noon’s yellow gleam;
And wholesome sweet the smell of the sod
Upturned from its Winter’s dream.
 
Sir Charles G D Roberts (1860-1943)
 
*high-hole – the Northern Flicker, colaptes auratus, a bird in the woodpecker family found in the USA.

The Orchard

There’s no garden like an orchard,
Nature shows no fairer thing
Than the apple trees in blossom
In these late days o’ the spring.

Here the robin redbreast’s nesting,
Here, from golden dawn till night,
Honey bees are gaily swimming
In a sea of pink and white.

Just a sea of fragrant blossoms,
Steeped in sunshine, drenched in dew,
Just a fragrant breath which tells you
Earth is fair again and new.

Just a breath of subtle sweetness,
Breath which holds the spice o’ youth,
Holds the promise o’ the summer -
Holds the best o’ things, forsooth.

There’s no garden like an orchard,
Nature shows no fairer thing
Than the apple trees in blossom
In these late days o’ the spring.

Jean Blewitt (1862-1934)

The Robin
 
Little brown brother, up in the apple tree,
  High on its blossom-rimmed branches aswing,
Here where I listen earth-bound, it seems to me
  You are the voice of the Spring.
 
Herald of Hope to the sad and faint-hearted,
  Piper the gold of the world cannot pay,
Up from the limbo of things long departed
  Memories you bring me to-day.
 
You are the echo of songs that are over,
  You are the promise of songs that will come,
You know the music, oh light-winged rover,
  Sealed in the souls of the dumb.
 
All of the past that we wearily sigh for,
  All of the future for which our hearts long,
All Love would live for, and all Love would die for
  Wordless, you weave in a song.
 
Little brown brother, up in the apple tree,
  My spirit answers each note that you sing,
And while I listen ‒ earth-bound ‒ it seems to me
  You are the voice of the Spring.
 
Virna Sheard (1862-1943)

The Year

The crocus, while the days are dark, 
Unfolds its saffron sheen;
At April’s touch, the crudest bark
Discovers gems of green

Then sleep the seasons, full of might; 
While slowly swells the pod
And rounds the peach, and in the night
The mushroom bursts the sod. 

The Winter falls; the frozen rut
Is bound with silver bars;
The snow-drift heaps against the hut.
And night is pierced with stars. 
Coventry Patmore 
(1823–1896) 

To My Dear and Loving Husband

​If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.

I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.

Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.​
Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)

The Pasture Field

When Spring has burned
  The ragged robe of Winter, stitch by stitch,
And deftly turned
  To moving melody the wayside ditch,
The pale-green pasture field behind the bars
Is goldened o’er with dandelion stars.

When Summer keeps
  Quick pace with sinewy, white-shirted arms,
And daily steeps
  In sunny splendour all her spreading farms,
The pasture field is flooded foamy white
With daisy faces looking at the light.

When Autumn lays
  Her golden wealth upon the forest floor,
And all the days
  Look backward at the days that went before,
A pensive company, the asters, stand,
Their blue eyes brightening the pasture land.
​
When Winter lifts
  A sounding trumpet to his strenuous lips,
And shapes the drifts
  To curves of transient loveliness, he slips
Upon the pasture’s ineffectual brown
​A swan-soft vestment delicate as down.
Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857–1940)

To the Rev. Mr Newton
An invitation into the Country

The swallows in their torpid state
Compose their useless wing,
And bees in hives as idly wait
The call of early Spring.

The keenest frost that binds the stream,
The wildest wind that blows,
Are neither felt nor fear'd by them,
Secure of their repose.

But man, all feeling and awake,
The gloomy scene surveys;
With present ills his heart must ache,
And pant for brighter days.

Old Winter, halting o'er the mead,
Bids me and Mary mourn;
But lovely Spring peeps o'er his head,
And whispers your return.

Then April, with her sister May,
Shall chase him from the bowers,
And weave fresh garlands every day,
To crown the smiling hours.

And if a tear that speaks regret
Of happier times, appear,
A glimpse of joy, that we have met,
Shall shine, and dry the tear.
​William Cooper (1731-1800)

See poems for other seasons