Celebration of Springtime

Noddy, I rather like:

A Prayer in Spring

Robert Frost

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid-air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.

That's a new one for me, Tarah. Thank you.

Robert Frost is a favorite of mine, too. I suppose "Mending Wall" is set in spring although not really a celebration of it.

I guess I've always thought of "Birches" as being springlike, although not really a celebration either. Oh well, one could do worse than be a swinger of birches:

Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Whooda Thunk--

Good to see you again.

My son who died was a Swinger of Birches. At the time I damned him, but now the poem brings me great comfort.

Thank you.

Hold your dominion.

I only skimmed the birch poem until I read your words, Noddy. They inspired me to go back and read it properly.

I'm pleased I did.

We can't have Frost without Dickinson ... still waiting for our first thunderstorm, then it will be Spring. <No tornados, please.>


The wind begun to rock the grass
With threatening tunes and low,--
He flung a menace at the earth,
A menace at the sky.

The leaves unhooked themselves from trees
And started all abroad;
The dust did scoop itself like hands
And throw away the road.

The wagons quickened on the streets,
The thunder hurried slow;
The lightning showed a yellow beak,
And then a livid claw.

The birds put up the bars to nests,
The cattle fled to barns;
There came one drop of giant rain,
And then, as if the hands

That held the dams had parted hold,
The waters wrecked the sky
But overlooked my father's house,
Just quartering a tree.

The first thunderstorm of the year wakes the snakes up. The Pocono snakes got the call in early March this year.

Charlotte Mew is pretty new to me. She wrote:

I So Liked Spring

I so liked Spring last year
Because you were here; --
The thrushes too --
Because it was these you so liked to hear --
I so liked you.

This year's a different thing, --
I'll not think of you.
But I'll like Spring because it is simply Spring
As the thrushes do.

The Goose Girl

Spring rides no horses down the hill
But comes on foot, a goose-girl still

And all the loviest things there be
Come simply, so, it seems to me

If ever I said, in grief or pride
I tired of honest things, I lied;

And should be cursed forever more
with Love in laces, like a whore,
And neigbors cold, and friends unsteady,

And Spring on horseback, like a lady!

--Edna Millay

this one speaks of spring, beautifully:

Apple Blossoms

The apple trees are blooming
like 'the white way of delight.'
It's springtime, and the fields are green
That once were cold and white.
The fragrance drifting on the breeze
is 'dizzying' perfume...
(a heady scent that lingers through
a sunny afternoon.)
The sky is blue--of azure tint.
The brook's a gurgling 'sigh.'
"This must be heaven, right on earth,"
I say, as clouds roll by.
I leave, with petals dropping,
Falling gently to the ground.
My first bouquet all cuddled up
We're off to higher ground.
Soon it will grace a silver vase
And send throughout the room...
The orchard-fresh aroma
Of this sunlit spring in BLOOM.

(copied from net)

From far, from eve and morning
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I.

Now -- for a breath I tarry
Nor yet disperse apart --
Take my hand quick and tell me,
What have you in your heart.

Speak now, and I will answer;
How shall I help you, say;
Ere to the wind's twelve quarters
I take my endless way.