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Quotations about Spring
The Spring being at her blessed carpentry
This morn will shape a stem, this noon a leaf,
Then jewel her sparse greenery with a bud.
~Louise Imogen Guiney (1861–1920), "Chidings"
Winter's grip's broken, the sun swings north! ~David J. Beard (1947–2016), @Raqhun, tweet, 2015
Of course everything is blooming most recklessly: if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night. ~Rainer Maria Rilke
A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King...
~Emily Dickinson
It won't be long until the springtime, when we may open the windows and breathe God's fresh air... Soon will the birds come back... How cheerfully Nature greets them. She puts out her leaves to hide their homes, and kisses them with the wind, the warm wind... Ah, Spring, we wait for you; for as the sap mounts the limbs of the tree so hope rises and we become bright again. ~Charles F. Raymond, "The Springtime," Just Be Glad, 1907
Awake, thou wintry earth,
Fling off thy sadness!
Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth
Your ancient gladness...
~T. Blackburne, "An Easter Hymn"
For winter's rains and ruins are over...
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.
~Algernon Charles Swinburne, Atalanta in Calydon, 1865
We all have preferences. I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden. ~Ruth Stout, "A Lilac Bush and an Apple Tree," How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back, 1955
I've banished Winter, saith the Spring,
Awake! arise, ye flowers!
Brisk breezes blow,
Bright sunshine glow,
And rouse the young Year's powers.
~Henry James Slack (1818–1896), The Ministry of the Beautiful, "Conversation IV: Spring-time on the Western Coast," 1850
Spring in its fullness had returned. Its deep breath was blowing damp and warm, the flowers quivered within the seeds, and the round earth began to ripen like a fruit. ~Jean Giono (1895–1970), Regain, 1930, translated from the French by Henri Fluchè and Geoffrey Myers, Harvest, 1939
Yesterday the twig was brown and bare;
To-day the glint of green is there
To-morrow will be leaflets spare;
I know no thing so wondrous fair
No miracle so strangely rare.
I wonder what will next be there!
~L. H. Bailey, "Miracle," Wind and Weather, 1916
In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. ~Margaret Atwood, "Unearthing Suite," 1983
That God once loved a garden
We learn in Holy Writ.
And seeing gardens in the spring
I well can credit it...
~Winifred Mary Letts, "Stephen's Green," 1926
The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month. ~Henry Van Dyke
NOTHING is so beautiful as spring—
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
~Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Spring," 1877
Out with the cold, in with the woo.
Sun, Moon, Stars!
Watch me go!
You are all just jewels in my bodice;
The crystal dawn is my slipper resting on the hills,
And my head is veiled with wheeling flocks of birds.
The people in the valleys cannot hear my voice;
But my skirts brush against their hearts,
And they hear my laughter in the melting snows.
~Anne Pappenheimer, "Spring"
The sun has come out... and the air is vivid with spring light. ~Byron Caldwell Smith (1849–1877), letter to Kate Stephens (1853–1938)
Something had changed since nightfall. A lissom and sweet-smelling force had darted out into the night. It gave the impression of a well-rested young animal. It was warm, just like the life under an animal's fur, and it smelt bitter. Panturle sniffed the air. Something like hawthorn. As it leapt forward, the whole earth seemed to be talking about it. The wind of spring! ~Jean Giono (1895–1970), Regain, 1930, translated from the French by Henri Fluchè and Geoffrey Myers, Harvest, 1939
And the Spring arose on the garden fair,
And the Spirit of Love fell everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest...
~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Sensitive Plant," 1820
...the spring of the year... Every breath of air brought a new and exquisite scent to him, and through the myrtle bushes he could hear the streams singing their way down to the lake... and a bird's extravagant song... Again Joseph heard the warbling water, and it seemed to him that he could hear the stars throbbing. It was one of those moments when the soul of man seems to break, to yearn for that original unity of which some sad fate has cast it — a moment when the world seems to be one thing and not several things... all blended into one extraordinary harmony... ~George Moore, The Brook Kerith: A Syrian Story, 1916
...O wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ode to the West Wind," 1819
The lawns were bright with the green silk of fresh grass, yellow borders of daffodils, and dotted with the blue and purple and pink of crocuses. ~Gerald Raftery (1905–1986), Twenty-Dollar Horse, 1955
Daughter of light! thy fairy step
Steals softly over vale and plain,
And with thy bright and joyous smile,
Beauty and life awake again.
~Mary Ann H. Dodd Shutts (1813–1878), "Spring"
It is a spring sun, intoxicating as young wine. I sit and dream. My thoughts escape from my head like the foam from a bottle of beer. They are light, and their fizzing amuses me. ~Anatole France, Le crime de Sylvestre Bonnard, 1881, translated by Lafcadio Hearn, 1890
Waft of soul's wing!
What lies above?
Sunshine and Love,
Skyblue and Spring!...
~Robert Browning, La Saisiaz, 1878
Exciting spring smells waft through wide open windows... ~David J. Beard (1947–2016), @Raqhun, tweet, 2009
Ah, how wonderful is the advent of the Spring! — the great annual miracle... which no force can stay, no violence restrain, like love, that wins its way and cannot be withstood by any human power, because itself is divine power. If Spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation would there be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change!... We are like children who are astonished and delighted only by the second-hand of the clock, not by the hour-hand. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kavanagh, 1849
What glad, mad fools we are in spring! ~John Robinson Jeffers, "Last Spring"
The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in His heaven—
All's right with the world!
~Robert Browning, Pippa Passes, 1841
The great pulsation of nature beats too in my breast, and when I carol aloud, I am answered by a thousand-fold echo. I hear a thousand nightingales. Spring hath sent them to awaken Earth from her morning slumber, and Earth trembles with ecstasy, her flowers are hymns, which she sings in inspiration to the sun... ~Heinrich Heine, "Ideas: Book Le Grand," 1826, translated from German by Charles Godfrey Leland, Pictures of Travel, 1855
Winter is twiddling her snowflakes,
Precariously poised
On the season's equator,
As hidden roots and channels and tendrils
Are burgeoning with spring,
And buds are a green explosion
Cancelling
Her ineffectual indecision.
~Alice Mackenzie Swaim, "Poised on the Season's Equator," Crickets Are Crying Autumn, 1960
O Spring! can I believe you,
With the score of times you've lied?
~V. A. R., "The Return of Spring," Poems, 1867
...we'll find our youth again. Nothing ever seems impossible in spring, you know. ~L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Ingleside, 1939
This is the sensory season. Trees are in leaf... It is a green world... Walk through an orchard and you can smell as well as feel the strength of grass underfoot, new grass reaching tall toward the sun. Boughs naked only a little while ago, then bright and heady with bloom, now rustle with leaf and tingle with the strength of fruition. Listen, and you can almost hear the pulse of sap and the mysterious workings of chlorophyll. The air vibrates with bird song... All the senses tingle, alive with the season as the world itself is alive. Nothing is impossible at such a time. ~Hal Borland (1900–1978)
Earth is a wintry clod;
But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes
Over its breast to awaken it; rare verdure
Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between
The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost,
Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face...
And God renews His ancient rapture.
~Robert Browning, Paracelsus, 1835
vibrant verdure lights
the springtime landscape
in blazingly brilliant greens
a fresh flourishing canvas
for parti-colored sparks
of wildly blooming things
~Terri Guillemets, "Spring blazes color," 2017
Friendship should be a great promise, a perennial springtime. ~Henry David Thoreau, 1842
Oh, Spring is surely coming,
Her couriers fill the air;
Each morn are new arrivals,
Each night her ways prepare;
I scent her fragrant garments,
Her foot is on the stair.
~John Burroughs, "A March Glee"
St. Valentine's Day, with its fluttering hearts,
Is over and gone for the year,
Yet Love is still busily plying his darts,
For springtime, glad springtime, is here...
~Robert Bruce, "The Advent of Spring," Echoes from Coondambo, 1893
In Spring, everything is full of promise... and nature rejoices in her virgin loveliness. ~Charles Lanman, "The Dying Year," 1840
To be interested in the changing seasons is... a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. ~George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905
The Spring has come again
For the grass is growing green,
And among the fields of clover
Bright butterflies are seen.
The little birds are singing sweetly
As they fly from tree to tree...
The busy bees are gathering
The honey from the flowers,
And the merry birds are building
Their nests in sheltered bowers...
~Josephine D.C., "Spring," c.1887
Spring is beautiful, and smells sweet. Spring is when you shake the curtains, and pound on the rugs, and take off your long underwear, and wash in all the corners. ~Virginia Cary Hudson, "Spring," O Ye Jigs & Juleps!, 1962
And now every field is clothed with grass, every tree with leaves; now the woods put forth their blossoms; now the year assumes its gayest attire. ~Virgil
Hope is a roving gypsy
With laughter on her tongue,
And the blue sky and sunshine
Alone, can keep her young;
And year by year she lingers
Under a budding tree...
~Dora Read Goodale, "The Chorus," in Country Life in America: A Magazine for the Home-maker, the Vacation-seeker, the Gardener, the Farmer, the Nature-teacher, the Naturalist, April 1902
When Winter's snows lie deepest,
And frost enchains the land,
The springtide oft is nearest;
And then, with lavish hand,
Sweet Spring, with dew-bright flowers,
Bejewels all the ground,
And sparkling, gushing fountains
Fresh verdure spread around...
~John Stanley Tute, Holy Times and Scenes, 1846
Springtime is the bringer of light... ~Charles Wessolowski, 1898
First a howling blizzard woke us,
Then the rain came down to soak us,
And now before the eye can focus —
Crocus.
~Lilja Rogers, "Hocus Pocus," in The Saturday Evening Post, 1961
earth's favorite color is spring
spring's best-loved color is green
and green himself loves to party
with yellow, red, orange, and pink
~Terri Guillemets, "Parti-colored," 2008
With snowdrop symptoms on your lawn
The golden doctor of the dawn
Identifies as March's most
Premature and candid ghost;
With orioles, if you inquire,
Putting your cherry tree on fire...
~Joseph Auslander, "Letter to Emily Dickinson," 1920s
Spring had come while she was not noticing... ~Cid Ricketts Sumner, Tammy Out of Time, 1958
There! Did you hear the edge
Of winter crumble?
~Mark Van Doren, "Spring Thunder," Spring Thunder and Other Poems, 1924
Wine-warm winds that sigh and sing,
Led me, wrapped in many moods,
Thro' the green sonorous woods
Of belated Spring...
~Madison Cawein, "Proem," 1887
Gentle Spring's around the corner,
Waiting just to show her face
And to bring us flowers and sunshine;
Winter's almost run his race!
Be not, then, my friends, discouraged
That there's cold and ice and sleet;
For Springtime soon will be with us,
And the flowers we will greet:
Daffodils, so bright and yellow,
Hyacinths of varied hues,
As they nod their heads, in gladness,
Telling us they bring good news...
~Gertrude Tooley Buckingham, "Springtime," 1940s
...spring-time, when that soft air is breathing over the blossoms and new-born verdure... ~William Wordsworth
How wonderfully these pictures have caught the look of tentative spring — spring waiting for a single day to burst into living green. ~Alice Morse Earle, "In Lilac Tide," Old-Time Gardens Newly Set Forth, 1901
She wore her yellow sun-bonnet,
She wore her greenest gown;
She turned to the south wind
And curtsied up and down.
She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbour:
"Winter is dead."
~A. A. Milne, "Daffodowndilly," When We Were Very Young, 1924
The call of spring seems to be louder, sweeter, more siren-like, than ever before. The longing to get closer to nature, fills the heart. O mächtig ist der Griff der Wanderlust! ~M.F. Canfield, "Die Wanderlust," To‑Morrow, June 1905
In fact, it is about five o'clock in an evening that the first hour of spring strikes — autumn arrives in the early morning, but spring at the close of a winter day. ~Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Heart, 1938
On all the orchard trees had come a filmy tint of green, so light it was hardly more than a shadow on the gray. The willows were vivid light green, and the orange groves dark and glossy like laurel. The billowy hills on either side of the valley were covered with verdure and bloom — myriads of low blossoming plants, so close to the earth that their tints lapped and overlapped on each other, and on the green of the grass, as feathers in fine plumage overlap each other and blend into a changeful color. The countless curves, hollows, and crests of the coast-hills in Southern California heighten these chameleon affects of the spring verdure; they are like nothing in nature except the glitter of a brilliant lizard in the sun or the iridescent sheen of a peacock's neck. ~Helen Jackson
Happiness? The color of it must be spring green... the regenerative power of nature explodes in every weed, stalk, branch. Working in the mild sun, I feel the green fuse of my body, too. Surges of energy, kaleidoscopic sunlight through the leaves, the soft breeze... this mindless simplicity can be called happiness. ~Frances Mayes, Bella Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy, 1999, francesmayesbooks.com
If I could patch a coverlet
From pieces of the Spring,
What dreams a happy child would have
Beneath so fair a thing!
A centre of the dear blue sky,
A bordering of green,
With patches of the yellow sun
All chequered in between.
Bright ribbons of the silky grass
Laced prettily across,
With satin of new little leaves,
And velvet of the moss.
In every corner, violets,
Half-hidden from the view,
With many-flowered squares betwixt,
Of pinky tints and blue..
Embroideries of little vines,
And spider-webs of lace...
With gold-thread I would sew the seams,
And needles of the pine;
Oh, never child in all the world
Would have a quilt like mine!
~Abbie Farwell Brown, "Spring Patchwork," 1901
In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four-and-twenty hours. ~Mark Twain, 1876
Spring translates earth's happiness into colorful flowers. ~Terri Guillemets
Well I remember, in my boyish days,
How deep the feeling, when my eye looked forth
On Nature, in her loveliness, and storms.
How my heart gladdened, as the light of spring
Came from the sun, with zephyrs, and with showers,
Waking the earth to beauty, and the woods
To music, and the atmosphere to blow,
Sweetly and calmly, with its breath of balm.
~James G. Percival, "Poetry," c.1822
The whisper of new green leaves has gladness in it... ~James Oppenheim, "Laughter," War and Laughter, 1916
As sure as what is more sure, sure as that spring primroses
Shall new-dapple next year, sure as to-morrow morning,
Amongst come-back-again things, thíngs with a revival, things with a recovery,
Thy name…
~Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
Spring is a happiness so beautiful, so unique, so unexpected, that I don't know what to do with my heart. I dare not take it, I dare not leave it — what do you advise? ~Emily Dickinson
Quick-fingered Spring her wand choragic,
A cherry brand, has waved in air;
And swift by arts of natural magic
The clustered cherry-blooms are there...
~Philip Henry Savage (1868–1899), "Presto," Poems, 1898
Springtime is the real new year; the period when with the new leaves all the world begins again. January, February and March are like prison walls to the spirit; April comes as a window opened, admitting sunlight and a patch of blue sky; then May bursts, the rainbow of the months, sent as a sign — a promise of fruition. ~The National Magazine, May 1899
Windy spring wakes color up.
See? The green blood returns, and stains
Hedges and hills; and wanton meadows
Wave at the windows of great trains...
~Mark Van Doren, "Edge of Town: Indiana," In That Far Land, 1951
The naked earth is warm with Spring,
And with green grass and bursting trees
Leans to the sun's gaze glorying,
And quivers in the sunny breeze;
And Life is Colour and Warmth and Light,
And a striving evermore for these;
And he is dead who will not fight,
And who dies fighting has increase...
~Julian H. F. Grenfell, "Into Battle," 1915
Walk woodland paths and life's dark ways,
In love and hope, in faith and in foreknowing
That where man sees but withered leaves,
God sees the sweet flowers of Spring growing.
~Albert Laighton, "Under the Leaves," The Poets of Portsmouth, 1865
Each new spring grows on autumn's leftovers. ~Hal Borland, "Autumn's Leftovers," November 1975
Spring: the music of open windows. ~Terri Guillemets, "Spring out & in," 2014
A sturdy three-year-old came running in to his breakfast in a state of excitement... swallowed a few mouthfuls, then pushed away his chair and seized his hat, perching it on a mat of yellow curls. "Why are you in such a hurry?" I asked. "Why," he said, "the whole world is covered with dandelions, and I must go out and pick 'em." Who, fortunate enough to be country-born, does not remember the keen delight in finding... the surprise of a golden patch of dandelions, first of the year? ~Bertha Payne, "Feeling for the Beautiful an Instinct of Childhood," 1894
A trap's a very useful thing:
Nature in our path sets Spring.
It is a trap to catch us two,
It is planned for me and you...
If we stop, if we look, if we speak, if we care,
Spring will catch us unaware...
— Let us never look at Spring;
It is a trap to catch us two.
~Mary Carolyn Davies, "Traps," Youth Riding, 1919
Oh, the Spring-time is the rose-time!
True, the Autumn has its light;
But the Spring-time is the love-time,
Let us bask in it to-night...
~Sara L. Vickers Oberholtzer, "The Spring-Time," Violet Lee, and Other Poems, 1873
I feel the ancient splendor of the Sun draw me across equinoxial bars into the solstice of the Spring... Once more my spirit leaps to greet the Sun. ~Ouina (Cora L. V. Scott Richmond), given through her Medium "Water Lily," "Spring," Ouina's Canoe, 1882 [Earth speaking
The energy of the earth flows through the veins of springtime. ~Terri Guillemets
The return of springtime always brings with it naturally a revival of the sweetest hopes and deepest joys of human nature. The heart of man in springtime is naturally joyous; all nature rejoices around him, and he cannot but participate in the general anthem of thanksgiving, and unite his voice with the universal pæan of praise. ~W. J. Colville, 1886
Sprinkle, drop, drop, patter, patter.
Here we come in joy again,
Out of clouds flying and flying,
Gladsome, gleeful spring-time rain...
Kissing all the buds and blossoms,
All the trees and blades of grass...
~Ouina (Cora L. V. Scott Richmond), given through her Medium "Water Lily," "Spring," Ouina's Canoe, 1882 [Rain speaking
...the sun shone and the new green leaves spread themselves to its warmth. ~Cid Ricketts Sumner, Tammy Out of Time, 1958
I heard the hylas in the bottomlands
Piping a reed-note in the praise of Spring:
The South-wind brought the music on its wing,
As 't were a hundred strands
Of guttural gold smitten of elfin hands;
Or of sonorous silver, struck by bands,
Anviled within the earth,
Of laboring gnomes shaping some gem of worth.
Sounds that seemed to bid
The wildflowers wake;
Unclose each dewy lid,
And starrily shake
Sleep from their airy eyes
Beneath the loam,
And, robed in dædal dyes,
Frail as the fluttering foam,
In countless myriads rise.
And in my city home
I, too, who heard
Their reedy word,
Awoke, and, with my soul, went forth to roam.
~Madison J. Cawein (1865–1914)
winter and spring overlap at the seams—
chilly breezes and warm green dreams!
~Terri Guillemets
I wonder if the Daffodil
Shrinks from the touch of frost,
And when her veins grow stiff and still
She dreams that life is lost?
Ah, if she does, how sweet a thing
Her resurrection day in spring!
~Emma C. Dowd, "Daffodil and Crocus," in Country Life in America: A Magazine for the Home-maker, the Vacation-seeker, the Gardener, the Farmer, the Nature-teacher, the Naturalist, April 1902
A wizard must have passed this way
Since—was it only yesterday?
Then all was bare, and now, behold,
A hundred cups of living gold!
~Emma C. Dowd, "Daffodil and Crocus," in Country Life in America: A Magazine for the Home-maker, the Vacation-seeker, the Gardener, the Farmer, the Nature-teacher, the Naturalist, April 1902
Come forth! for Spring is singing in the boughs... ~Arthur Davison Ficke, Sonnets of a Portrait-Painter, 1914
As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos... ~Henry David Thoreau
earth dreams of spring
in her winter slumbers
she dozes on and off —
then trembles wide awake
a silent green earthquake
~Terri Guillemets
I love to trace the break of Spring step by step... those long rain-storms that sap the icy fortunes of the lingering winter... the gentle thaws by the stained snow-banks, shrinking from the grass... when the first flowers in the midst of the bleak March atmosphere will touch your heart, like a hope of Heaven in a field of graves... the soft, smoky days, when patches of winter grain show green under the shelter of leafless woods, and the last snow drifts reduced to shrunken skeletons of ice, lie upon the slope of northern hills, leaking away their life... the buds upon the lilacs swelling and bursting... the old elms coloring their spray with green... the crimsoning blossoms of the maple... the oaks stepping into the season with long and glossy leaves... the dandelions lying along the hillocks, like stars in a sky of green... ~Ik Marvel (Donald Grant Mitchell), 1863 [a little altered
After the epigæa and the hepatica have blossomed, there is a slight pause among the wild-flowers, — these two forming a distinct prologue for their annual drama, as the brilliant witch-hazel in October brings up its separate epilogue. The truth is, Nature attitudinizes a little, liking to make a neat finish with everything, and then to begin again with éclat... Each species seems to burst upon us with a united impulse; you may search for it day after day in vain, but the day when you find one specimen the spell is broken and you find twenty. By the end of April all the margins of the great poem of the woods are illuminated with these exquisite vignettes. ~Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "April Days," 1861
The sprites of the fruits, and flowers, and leaves,
They had long been out at play...
But the stirring blast that clarion cast,
Oh, it broke their holiday!—
And they hurry home at their topmost speed,
Flurried and flushed with the sudden need,
Sprinkling the earth as they pass along
With a flood of colour and gush of song—
For the Summer is coming to wed the Spring,
And earth on their altar her wealth shall fling,
And the Heaven's soft odours and breezes bring,
And the hollow heights and the depths shall ring
With a wild overgushing of gladdening...
~J.J. Britton (1832–1913), "March"
High on a hill... was a little piney glade. It was bright with the many flowers of this the Song-moon time; it was lovely and restful in the neither-sun-nor-shade... ~Ernest Thompson Seton, The Biography of a Silver-Fox, 1909
...the sweet wildflower breath of spring... ~Terri Guillemets
Mother Earth is pulsing with new life. Wide fields of early rye, set in motion by the soft breezes, roll forth their gratitude in rich, emerald undulations. Robin and bob-white rent the air with their bright gladness. The fragrant petals of peach and apple blossoms fall and lay in sensate caress upon the earth, producing that harmony of odor and color known only to spring in the South. Trailing berry-vines climbing over a rustic fence form a background of graceful, waving green. The bewildering shades of grays and greens in the deeper woods intoxicate the eye and inspire the inner man with the promise of new life. O, the satisfaction of heart-hunger and soul-thirst in the contemplation of reviving nature! ~M. F. Canfield, "Die Wanderlust," To‑Morrow, June 1905
A week ago we were all here —
To-day is very beautiful — just as bright, just as blue, just as green and as white and as crimson as the cherry-trees full in bloom, and the half-opening peach-blossoms, and the grass just waving, and sky and hill and cloud can make it, if they try. How I wish you were here, Austin; you thought last Saturday beautiful, yet to this golden day
At length the sun's rays have attained the right angle, and warm winds blow up mist and rain and melt the snow-banks, and the sun dispersing the mist smiles on a checkered landscape of russet and white smoking with incense, through which the traveller picks his way from islet to islet, cheered by the music of a thousand tinkling rills and rivulets whose veins are filled with the blood of winter which they are bearing off. ~Henry David Thoreau
Comes happy Spring, like a maiden fair,
Quickly breathing the odorous air,
With grass-green robes, and round her hair
Apple and almond blooms, with care
Twisted and twined in a circlet rare...
And wherever she passes, morn or night,
All the broad earth smiles a smile of delight.
~J. J. Britton (1832–1913), "Epithalamium"
Sun coaxes life
from the earth
with its warmth —
Grow, thrive, breathe
green things of the land
wake from your
winter's nap and
joyously reach
for the spring —
Colors burst
into vibrant being —
fresh fireworks
on verdant stems of life
~Terri Guillemets
Spring shall her sweets display, Nature shall vie with Art,
No Clouds shall shade the day, no grief the Heart.
Love shall his Treasures bring, Beauty shall sport and sing,
Free as the Zephyr's wing, soft as his kiss — soft as his kiss.
~John Christopher Smith, "The Enchanter," 1760 ♫
Springtime is a poet —
the blue sky its blank page
so vibrant green in rhyme
a different metre for every clime
birds chirping to keep the time
wildflowers yellow, red, purple divine
words dancing on tall blades of grasses
sparkling in the morning dews
no commas the flow keeps buzzing
vernal dashes & blossoming branches
on newly greening verdant trees
refrains whispering in each breeze
butterflies — floating apostrophes
ladybugs dot floral question marks
blissful bees stray stanza to stanza
seeds disperse from verse to verse
continuing a poem that's never ended
and into summer's colors is blended
~Terri Guillemets, "Poetry of spring," 2009
Like melody from some earth-nurtured spring,
Or streams that in the throbbing heart of ocean
Flow on forever and forever sing...
~Francis Howard Williams, "Ave America!," The Flute-Player and Other Poems, 1894
A day comes in the springtime
When Earth puts forth her powers,
Casts off the bonds of winter
And lights him hence with flowers...
~Dora Read Goodale, "The Chorus," in Country Life in America: A Magazine for the Home-maker, the Vacation-seeker, the Gardener, the Farmer, the Nature-teacher, the Naturalist, April 1902
Spring stirs under silent snow. ~Terri Guillemets
Missed spring last year... Didn't happen to look out my window between ten and eleven o'clock on the twenty-third of May. ~Charles H. Knickerbocker, "Spring (if you could call it that)," Summer Doctor, 1963
Spring is the green
is the peace
is the breeze
and the blossoms
and the blues
past the buds
to the pinks
on the brink
and the warmth
and the warbles
and the weeds
all the yellows
and the bees
and the buzzing
living branches
and the grasses
and the gardens
and the growing
and the blowing
of the pollens
oh! the purples
and the chirples
of the birds
and the beauty
and the butterflies
in the skies
and the sun—
Springtime's fun!
~Terri Guillemets, "Jovial vernal verse," 2016
To the poet-heart of childhood, the whole round of springtime is a succession of delights, each heart-throb an unconscious response to the outer beauty of creation, an unconscious greeting to the inner divine essence that quickens all things to radiant life. ~Bertha Payne, "Feeling for the Beautiful an Instinct of Childhood," 1894
Spring is so damn pink!
O yes, it's vibrantly green
and greenly vibrant too—
reds burst, oranges blaze
yellows beam like the sun
violet dazzles vivid delight
blue paints the entire sky—
but the thing that thrills
my soul the most is that
Spring is so damn pink!
~Terri Guillemets, "Spring is
This ground so bare, so beaten by winter,
Suddenly sends up delicate green,
Then blue, then yellow and red, then white:
Secrets it was saving for us,
Wealth we didn't know we had...
~Mark Van Doren (1894–1972), "This Ground So Bare," Good Morning: Last Poems by Mark Van Doren, 1973 [a book of poems written during the final three years of his life
As Earth sways us from winter to spring
Nature begins her grace of glorious green
~Terri Guillemets
The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than ever!... The brooks sing carols and glees to the spring... The grass flames up on the hill sides like a spring fire... as if the earth sent forth an inward heat to greet the returning sun; not yellow but green is the color of its flame... ~Henry David Thoreau
All the brown twigs are stirring within,
Winter has surely gone past!
Wrappings of tree-buds are stretching quite thin—
Springtime is nearing at last!
Color and gladness are coming this way—
Listen, dear heart, while I sing!
Here is my gift for your beautiful day;
Love and the heralds of spring.
~Juniata Stafford, "March," Flowers of Grasses, 1899
...as the Grass-moon followed the Crow-moon, an influence filled the air, the woods, the ground, with fecund promise of wild life renewed. ~Ernest Thompson Seton, The Biography of a Silver-Fox, 1909
Then suddenly she blanched and blushed again,
And her divinely pulsing body bowed
With outstretched arms over the yawning earth...
...Aphrodite with a golden cry
That echoed round the world and shook the stars,
Caught him and thawed him in her warm embrace,
And murmuring kisses bore him to her bower.
Then all the trees were lit with budding flames
Of emerald, and all the meads and leas,
Coverts and shady places, glades and dells,
Odoured and dimly stained with opening flowers,
And loud with love-songs of impassioned birds,
Became the shrine and hostel of the spring.
~John Davidson, "A Ballad in Blank Verse of the Making of a Poet"
Spring... thaws the frozen fears,
mends the wounded heart
that Winter has broken.
~Aarno Davidson, in Arizona Highways, April 1970, arizonahighways.com
Soft spring air, an elixir of joy simply to breathe in and out. ~Frances Mayes, Bella Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy, 1999, francesmayesbooks.com
Waken thou slumbering earth!...
Long time my rays have pressed the northern winter king
Back to his northern quest... O, Earth, thou child of mine...
Revive the powers of old and thou art young again!
~Ouina (Cora L. V. Scott Richmond), given through her Medium "Water Lily," "Spring," Ouina's Canoe, 1882 [Sun speaking
The change from storm and winter to serene and mild weather, from dark and sluggish hours to bright and elastic ones, is a memorable crisis which all things proclaim. ~Henry David Thoreau
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published 2000 Dec 23
revised 2021 Feb 28
last saved 2024 May 26
www.quotegarden.com/spring.html