Another Spring
This is just a smile and wave to say that things are going to be pretty quiet around here for the next couple of weeks as I tend to the sweet business of living. Life’s been burgeoning with such glad persistence of late that something’s got to give to make way for it. Thus a little springtime quiet is in order as I replenish the wells with books and garden seeds and long talks with one of my very favorite people on earth (who happens to be visiting at present) and staring at my peacocks. And maybe a few house projects, to boot.
I leave you with this wistful poem of Christina Rossetti’s, one that I make a point of reading every spring. Not only do I appreciate its poignant warning, I cherish its gentle reminder of the joys awaiting outside my own window–joys as heart-breakingly fleeting as youth itself.
If I might see another Spring
I’d not plant summer flowers and wait:
I’d have my crocuses at once,
My leafless pink mezereons,
My chill-veined snowdrops, choicer yet
My white or azure violet,
Leaf-nested primrose; anything
To blow at once not late.
If I might see another Spring
I’d listen to the daylight birds
That build their nests and pair and sing,
Nor wait for mateless nightingale;
I’d listen to the lusty herds,
The ewes with lambs as white as snow,
I’d find out music in the hail
And all the winds that blow.
If I might see another Spring—
O stinging comment on my past
That all my past results in “if”—
If I might see another Spring
I’d laugh to-day, to-day is brief;
I would not wait for anything:
I’d use to-day that cannot last,
Be glad to-day and sing.
Another Spring, Christina Rossetti
Oh happy Spring indeed! I long to steal your blog layout in your absence, but since I can’t, shall settle instead for browsing through your bookshelves… adieu 🙂
Happy Spring! I can’t wait to take my favorite springtime pilgrimage–to Huntington Library and Gardens!
Happy Spring to you too, Lanier!
“A little springtime quiet” is a lovely thing…may yours be renewing and restorative in every particular way. God’s blessings to you, Lanier!
Here’s is a little springtime poem to reciprocate the sentiments of Rossetti’s offering:
Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
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 in 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.
A Prayer in Spring by Robert Frost
Blossoms pink and blue sky are just what our souls are starved to see! A grand photo!
Enjoy your respite. Please do think of us in time to post some springtime flower pics from your charming fenced garden…and we’d like to see, too, that late-spring grass carpeting your rosebeds, per Mr. Brigg’s dictates. 🙂 (You do take photo requests, don’t you? 🙂
Yesterday I read a charming short story in LMM’s collection, Across the Miles. This story was entitled “A Fortunate Mistake.” Just listen: “Maude leaned out of the window to pull a pink climbing rose.” With this single sentence, LMM has given me a new passion for this summer!
Thank you so much for the lovely Rossetti poem — I have never read it before, and I love it. It will be passed on to my friends