"Spring" - a poem by Christina Rossetti

A poem that echoes this beautiful , ambivalent spring. Here, life is bursting from the earth again and the birds are nesting in trees and hedges. On our television screens, is the violence and tyranny of mankind under the skies of Libya and the horror of loss and destruction that nature has brought to Japan.

Spring

Frost-locked all the winter,

Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits,

What shall make their sap ascend

That they may put forth shoots?

Tips of tender green,

Leaf, or blade, or sheath;

Telling of the hidden life

That breaks forth underneath,

Life nursed in its grave by Death.

Blows the thaw-wind pleasantly,

Drips the soaking rain,

By fits looks down the waking sun:

Young grass springs on the plain;

Young leaves clothe early hedgerow trees;

Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits,

Swollen with sap put forth their shoots;

Curled headed ferns sprout in the lane;

Birds sing and pair again.

There is no time like Spring,

When life`s alive in everything,

Before new nestlings sing,

Before cleft swallows speed their journey back

Along the trackless track-

God guides their wing,

He spreads their table that they nothing lack,-

Before the daisy grows a common flower,

Before the sun has power

To scorch the world up in his noontide hour.

There is no time like Spring,

Like Spring that passes by:

There is no life like Spring-life born to die,-

Piercing the sod,

Clothing the uncouth clod,

Hatched in the nest,

Fledged on the windy bow,

Strong on the wing;

There is no time like Spring that passes by,

Now newly born, and now

Hastening to die.

by Christina Rossetti