Focus on Flowers

2005: Poetry of Spring

Before homes were as well heated as ours, the yearning for spring's coming must have been felt physically, in the bones, as well as through the senses. William Blake (1757-1827) is one of many poets who have written entreatingly "To Spring."

"…Come o'er the eastern hills, and let our winds kiss my perfumed garments; let us taste they morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls upon our lovesick land that mourns for thee."

A more modern poet Siegfried Sassoon wrote a poem in 1935 that he called, "Vigil in Spring"

"The night air, smelling cold with spring
And the dark twigs of towering trees,
When age remembers youth, we bring
Aliveness back to us in these.
Leaning from windows on the gloom,
We are one with purpling woods and wet
Wild violets of our earth in whom
Aliveness wakes and wonders yet.
In breadth awareness, hushed and cold,
Of growths announcement thrust and thrill.
We learn from lifetime, growing old,
And feel your starlit magic still."

Sassoon grasps at the coming of spring as if he can share in the rejuvenation of the earth, and recapture the aliveness of his youth, as the sap rises in the trees. Images of rebirth and new beginnings and the miracle of those first tiny buds, abound in poetry.

This is Moya Andrews, and today we focused on the Poetry of Spring.

WFIU
Created and maintained by Michael Toler
Last updated: Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Copyright 2005, The Trustees of
Indiana University