Aaaah, spring, where are you? Tomorrow, March 20th, Spring begins the vernal equinox at 12:57 in the afternoon ... and my garden is still filled with 8 foot high snow banks. The streets are hidden under many layers of pressed snow; dark brown, dirty white, dull mud gray, pebbled, and crackling with rot - like we see the earth in archaeological digs. Spring? Is this spring? Can't be!
I was reading Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market and Other Poems" again last night and came upon the same poem I wrote about last year.
The impatient hope for changes in weather often leads me back to Rossetti.
Portrait of Christina Rossetti 1830-1894 by Dante Charles Gabriel Rossetti
"The First Spring Day"
"I wonder if the sap is stirring yet,
If wintery birds are dreaming of a mate,
If frozen snow drops feel as yet the sun
And crocus fires are kindling one by one:
Sing, robin, sing;
I am sore in doubt concerning spring."
I am sore in doubt concerning spring."
"Spring"
Arthur Herbert Buckland, 1896
Walter Crane 1844-45
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I wonder if the springtide of this year
Will bring another Spring both lost and dear;
If heart and spirit will find out their Spring,
Or if the world alone will bud and sing:
Sing, hope, to me;
Sweet notes, my hope, soft notes for memory.
"The Soul of the Rose"
John William Waterhouse, 1908
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The tardiest bird will twitter to a mate;
So Spring must dawn again with warmth and bloom,
Or in this world, or in the world to come:
Sing, voice of Spring,
Till I too blossom and rejoice and sing.
"Love's Messenger"
Marie Spartelli Stillman 1844-1927
"Bird's Nest" William Henry Hunt 1855-1860
"Love's Messenger"
Marie Spartelli Stillman 1844-1927
