Our spring library

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

Budding Time Too Brief

​O little buds, break not so fast!
The Spring’s but new.
The skies will yet be brighter blue,
And sunny too.
I would you might thus sweetly last
Till this glad season’s overpast,
Nor hasten through.

It is so exquisite to feel
The light warm sun;
To merely know the Winter done,
And life begun;
And to my heart no blooms appeal
For tenderness so deep and real,
As any one

Of these first April buds, that hold
The hint of Spring’s
Rare perfectness that May-time brings.
So take not wings!
Oh, linger, linger, nor unfold
Too swiftly through the mellow mould,
Sweet growing things!

And errant birds, and honey-bees,
Seek not to wile;
And, sun, let not your warmest smile
Quite yet beguile
The young peach-boughs and apple-trees
To trust their beauty to the breeze;
Wait yet awhile!​
Evaleen Stein (1863–1923)

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).

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)

It's All I have to Bring Today 

​It’s all I have to bring today–
This, and my heart beside –
This, and my heart, and all the fields –
And all the meadows wide –
Be sure you count – should I forget
Some one the sum could tell –
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.
Emily Dickinson (1830-86)

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)
.

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)

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