Our spring library

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

All Last Night

All last night I had quiet
           In a fragrant dream and warm:
She had become my Sabbath,
           And round my neck, her arm.

I knew the warmth with dreaming;
           The fragrance, I suppose,
Was her hair about me,
            Or else she wore a rose.

Her hair, I think; for likest
           Woodruffe 'twas, when Spring
Loitering down wet woodways
           Treads it sauntering.

No light, nor any speaking;
           Fragrant only and warm.
Enough to know my lodging,
           The white Sabbath of her arm.

Lascelles Abercrombie (1881 – 1938)​

Ariel’s Song From The Tempest

Where the bee sucks there suck I:
In a cowslips bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry,
On the bat’s back I do fly
After summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)​

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)

Forenoon

Soft as the whisper shut within a shell,
The far sea rustles white along the sand,
A tiny breeze, blown wanton from the land,
Teases it into dimples visible;
A dream of blue, the Fife hills sink and swell;
The large light quivers, and from strand to strand
A vast content seems breathing to expand;
And the deep heaven smiles down a sleepy spell.
Dark bathers bob; the girders of the pier
Stand softened forth against the quiet blue;
Dogs bark; the wading children take their pleasure;
A horse comes charging round, and I can hear
The gallops’s wild waltz-rhythm, falling thro’,
Change to the trot’s deliberate polka-measure.

William Earnest Henley (1849 – 1903)

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)

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)

Magdalen Walks

The little white clouds are racing over the sky,
And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March,
The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch
Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by.

A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze,
The odour of deep wet grass , the of brown new-furrowed earth,
The birds are singing for joy of the Spring’s glad birth.
Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees.

And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring,
And the rosebud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,
And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire
Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.

And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love
Til it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green
And the gloom of the wytch-elm’s hollow is lit with the iris sheen
Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove.

See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there,
Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew,
And flashing a-down the river, a flame of blue!
The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air.

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

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)

Song on a May Morning

Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
​The flowry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose.
Hail bounteous May that dost inspire
Mirth and youth, and warm desire,
Woods and groves, are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale, doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early Song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

John Milton (1608 – 1674).

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 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 lov'd 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 Cowper (1731-1800)

See poems for other seasons