Spring

“ So said George Eliot, and with all due reverence for her opinion, my soul would fly in the opposite direction, seeking the spring. If the autumn led straight on to spring I could love it more, but through its stillness I hear the winter blast; its gorgeous colouring scarce hides the baring boughs; day by day death lays a withering hand on flower and tree; day by day the sun runs quicker to its golden resting-place. Have you ever noticed how great a difference there is between the sun's summer and winter march across the heavens? ”

“ It is not in laughter
These rhymes of you end.
342 XIV
Spring, and fall, and summer, and winter,
Which may Earth love least of them all,
Whose arms embrace as their signs imprint her,
Summer, or winter, or spring, or fall?
The clear-eyed spring with the wood-birds mating,
The rose-red summer with eyes aglow,
The yellow fall with serene eyes waiting,
The wild-eyed winter with hair all snow?
Spring's eyes are soft, but if frosts benumb her
As winter's own will her shrewd breath sting:
Storms may rend the raiment of summer,
And fall grow bitter as harsh-lipped spring. ”

“ During a mild day, at some such spot, we can almost delude ourselves into thinking that spring is coming; but on the morrow a fierce wind rattles the bare branches above you, clouds of stinging dust, or driving snow, fill the chilled air, and not a bird is to be seen or heard, the cheery sights and sounds of yesterday having given place to a dreariness most drear. ”

“ Ah, yes, “the year’s pleasant king”! and yet our spring is a beautiful spirit, and she has been hovering about us; but now, to-day, she has set her feet upon the earth, and there is a great triumph of verdure on the trees and on the grass; and Apple trees meet her in fulness of bloom, and May-buds are swelling on the Thorns to make up for lost time; and all the edges of meadow-grass are jewelled with little gems of purple, and blue, and red, and the broad fields shine in silver and gold. ”

“ Spring and its wistful ecstasy of saplings, and its yearning, wild, wind-loosened heart; gleam and song, blossom and cloud, and the swift white rain; each upturned leaf so little and so glad to flutter; each wood and field so full of peeping things! Summer! Ah! Summer, when on the solemn old trees the long days shone and lingered, and the glory of the meadows and the murmur of life and the scent of flowers bewildered tranquillity, till surcharge of warmth and beauty brooded into dark passion, and broke! ”

“ So the winter slipped away very gradually, for even after the first breath of spring, which comes to us from afar and thrills us as no other fragrance of air, frost, snow, rain and biting winds triumph again, and bud and sprouting green seem to shrink up and cower away. ”

“ Spring passes over mountain and meadow, waking up the world; weaving the wavy grass, nursing the timid spray, stirring the soft breeze; rippling all nature in ceaseless flow, with “breath all odor and cheek all bloom.” ”

“ Spring comes soberly, inaudibly as it were, in these temperate European lands, where the grass holds its green all winter, and the foliage of ivy, laurel, holly, and countless other evergreen shrubs, links the lifeless to the living months. ”

“ Spring with her balmy air, soft refreshing showers, green fields, fragrant flowers, and merry cheerful birds; Summer, with her sultry days, her cool inviting shades, her waving fields, and delicious fruits; and Autumn, with his rich golden harvest, bright pensive dreamy days, and clear moonlight evenings, have power to rouse the minstrel from her slumbers; and even rude old Winter, clothed in clouds and storms and drifting snows, can with his icy fingers sweep her silent harp strings and wake their wildest melody. ”

“ When you meet spring, before the trees come out in full dress, when all that fluttering, fluffy greenness, and that crimson flowering etch, with innumerable branchlets, the embroidery of Nature against the sky, you meet, even though the east sea winds blow, a season incomparable. ”

“ Blows upward from the south, and wooes us sweet,
And since spring is abroad, come, let us greet
The beauty of her presence everywhere.
Come to the forest, where the oak-trees stand
Like giant patriarchs through the changing year,
The autumn leaves are rustling pale and sere
Among their branches, — yet a flowery hand
I see beneath them; ah! what secrets sweet,
And little tenderest blossoms do unfold
Here in this spot beside the oak-trees old,
Like fair young children, tired from their play,
Who seek for shelter, I behold to-day
A vision of wind-flowers blowing at their feet! ”

“ When morning-time is bright with sun And keen with wind, and both confuse The dancing, glancing eyes of one With tears that ooze and ooze— And nose-tips weep as well as they, The Spring is coming round this way. When suddenly some shadow-bird Goes wavering beneath the gaze, And through the hedge the moan is heard Of kine that fain would graze In grasses new, I smile and say, The Spring is coming round this way. ”

“ Spring came, as it always comes in that snow-washed northern land, with a ramp of the ice loosening its grip from the turbulent waters, and a whirr of the birds winging north in long, high, wedge-shaped lines, and a crunching of the icefloes riding turbulently out to sea, and a piping of the odorous spring winds through the resinous balsam-scented woods. ”

“ For the spring drew him, warm, soft, budding spring,
With promises. The father better knew.
God, give us heaven. Remember our poor hearts.
We never grasp the zenith of the time;
We find no spring, except in winter prayers. ”

“ Everything that had budded had a world to itself and could be seen. Radiant, innocent, carolling, self-revealing, the movement and action of spring were in the earth. The running and glittering water, in winter so vivid a feature of the fields, had become insignificant in comparison with the splendid and vigorous sky. ”

“ Spring comes smiling, and pours her blossoms into the lap of Summer. But the skies lower, and the rain and battering hail descend, and the virgin blossoms droop their heads and almost die. Summer again smiles and the meadows look gay ”

“ Every winter had its spring; every summer its autumn; and the heart need remember only its springs and autumns. She looked upward into the depths of pale blue ether, and followed the course of the white, drifting clouds. ”

“ It was the latter part of winter, that period into which, among snowstorms and gray, cold days, the approaching spring projects sometimes, as a forerunner, a warm and luminous day, or even a single hour, so passionately young and sparkling that the sparrows in the street become mad with joy and men seem intoxicated. ”

“ Spring is not just a time of year to the forest folk, and particularly to those creatures whose homes are the far spruce forests of the North. It is a magic and a mystery, a recreation and a renewed lease on life itself. ”

“ The spring came at length with strange suddenness, as it often comes in our northern land, causing a magical change in the face of nature. A green flush overspread the landscape. The skies became soft and tender, with glorious sunsets. ”

“ The rain of spring is brisk, fragrant, charged with life-giving warmth. I welcome it delightedly as it visits the earth, enriches the streams, waters the hills abundantly, makes the furrows soft with showers for the seed, elicits a perfume which I cannot breathe deep enough. ”

“ Winter brightened into spring, with all its varieties of good and evil; east winds rushing round street-corners, and cutting into the pedestrian like a knife; west winds enfolding him like a balmy caress, and bringing the perfume of violets, the vivid yellow of daffodils into the wilderness of brick and stone; rainy days, grey, monotonous, dismal, hanging on the soul like a curtain of gloom and hopelessness. ”

“ I see the jade-green grass and realize that it is Spring.
Everywhere there is an immense confusion of ripples and agitations.
Why does the waving and fluttering of the weeping-willow make me sad?
The sky is so bright it shines; everything is lovely and at peace.
The breath of the sea is green, fresh, sweet-smelling;
The heaths are vari-coloured, blue—green—as a kingfisher feather. Oh-h-h-h-h—How far one can see!
Clouds whirl, fly, float, and cluster together, each one sharply defined;
Waves are smoothed into a wide, continuous flowing. ”

“ You have in your climate genial and joyous spring, when nature revives from the dead and puts on her youthful and gay apparel, when the thorn, the citron, and the apple-tree bud and blossom;—beautiful is your spring, the loveliest and most charming season of your year. ”

“ All spring and summer is in them, the walks by silent and scented paths, the rests in noonday heat, the joy of herds and flocks, the power of all shepherd life and meditation, the life of sunlight upon the world falling in emerald streaks, and falling in soft blue shadows where else it would have struck upon the dark mold or scorching dust. ”

“ Winter is staid and dignified and grand with its stark trees and mantle of brown earth, and summer is glowing and glorious; but very young spring is so sappy and curly and yellow and green and lavender that you take it to heart and let it nestle there to suck its pink apple-blow thumb, and curl up its young sprout toes sheltered away from the cold that sets it back and the sun that forces it to break bud. ”

“ How the summer follows the spring, and the winter follows the autumn, and the years go by! And the clouds sail on through the sky, and the shadows follow each other over the grass, and the grass fadeth. ”

“ Spring is with us once more, pacing the earth in all the primal pomp of her beauty, with flowers and soft airs and the song of birds every where about her, and the blue sky and the bright clouds above. ”

“ That angry cloud that left us, driven away before the conquering Spring, now lowers above the northward mountain; we see its livid face and feel its blighting breath—“a hard, dull bitterness of cold,” that sweeps along the moor in noisy triumph, that howls and tears among the trembling trees, and smothers out the last smouldering flame of faded Autumn. ”

“ Then as the spring drew near, if, indeed, such a word as spring be at all applicable to an abode of utter dreariness, a faint twilight would be just discernible. The illuminated portion of the sky would move round and round the horizon each twenty-four hours, gradually becoming more and more conspicuous, until at last the edge of the sun appeared. ”

“ Once in the early spring when it was pleasant enough with a cool breeze blowing, and white clouds resting on the tops of the distant mountains, and the broad rolling levels of short, crisp, grass-land sweeping up from their feet to the horizon unceasingly. ”

“ Spring-time has its pleasant scenery, its genial days, its deep green, its flowers, and its singing birds; and these are all the more lovely because they follow so closely upon the cold storms, and bleak winds, the chilling and blank desolation of winter. We love the spring because of its freshness, its pervading vitality, its recuperating influences. Everybody loves the spring-time ”

“ While loitering frosts about the lowlands cling,
To be in tune with what the robins sing,
Plastering new log-huts ’mid her branches gray;
But when the Autumn southward turns away,
Then in her veins burns most the blood of Spring,
And every leaf, intensely blossoming,
Makes the year’s sunset pale the set of day. ”

“ Spring rain is beautiful, impartial, lovable. With pearly drops it washes every leaf on tree and bush, ministers equally to salutary herbs and noxious growths, searches out every living thing that needs its beneficence. ”

“ In winter come the storms, and the great winds blow, but then will follow spring in all its beauty, adorning hill and plain with perfumed plants and red anemones, fair to see. Then will the birds trill out upon the branches their songs of joy, and sermonize in lilting tones from the pulpits of the trees. ”

“ See here, under this big pine, a whole garden of arbutus, green and budded, almost ready to bloom! The snows shall come before their sweet eyes open; but open they will at the very first touch of spring. ”

“ The dews of spring fall, summer's vapours fade away, and it is the pure atmosphere of autumn which clearly reveals the distant landscape, and then finally earthly existence is swallowed in the night of winter. ”

“ On moss-spread turf to rest awhile, poor thing!
Played with an insect, stripped of leaves a flower,
Or broke the new shoots summoned forth by spring.
And sang! The sun seemed to smile in her song!
Some scrap it was of popular melody;
Thus sings the linnet clear and loud and long,
Until its notes mount straight up to the sky.
O breath of lovely days! Mysterious strength
Of sunbeam warm, or blossom newly blown!
O joy to hear, to see, to feel at length
The charm divine by God on all things thrown!
In spring can any child a long time sob?
The blade of grass attracts it, or the leaf ”

“ The greater miracle of spring is done before our eyes each year, the sun shines and the grass grows, it rains and all things are refreshed, and the dead seed's heart breaks with the joy of coming life, bursts and shoots up to meet the warmth of the sunshine and be kissed by the west wind. ”

“ We must seek it among the leafless woods and the brambly lanes, on the heathy moors and the great still hills, if we want to feel its joyous breath and hear its silent voices. There is a glorious freshness in the spring there. The scurrying clouds, the open bleakness, the rushing wind, and the clear bright air thrill one with vague energies and hopes. ”

“ Spring has taken possession of the garden and flowers are blooming everywhere. Spring, dressed in yellow, appears suddenly out of the bush; then several little figures dressed in yellow—or other colours—appear. They dance in front of the flower beds and scatter flowers. ”