fall - summer - winter

Spring is here!
   

Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment.

Ellis Peters
   

Lord of the springtime, Father of flower, field and fruit,
smile on us in these earnest days when the work is heavy
and the toil wearisome; lift up our hearts, O God,
to the things worthwhile--sunshine and night, the dripping rain,
the song of the birds, books and music, and the voices of our friends.
Lift up our hearts to these this night and grant us Thy peace.  Amen.

W.E.B. DuBois

      
The bud itself is the miracle.  To watch the upthrust of a daffodil, to see it take form as a flower-to-be, to see the
bud grow and take on the warmth of color--there is the very synthesis of spring.

unattributed
  
And the Spring arose on the garden fair;
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
   

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 there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change!  But now the silent succession suggests nothing but necessity.  To most people only the cessation of the miracle would be miraculous and the perpetual exercise of God's power seems less wonderful than its withdrawal would be.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

   

Praise with elation
Praise every morning
Spring's re-creation
Of the First Day!

Eleanor Farjeon
    
   
 

The air and the earth interpenetrated in the warm gusts of spring;
the soil was full of sunlight, and the sunlight full of red dust.
The air one breathed was saturated with earthy smells,
and the grass under foot had a reflection of blue sky in it.

Willa Cather
   

In those vernal seasons
of the year, when the
air is calm and pleasant,
it were an injury and
sullenness against Nature
not to go out and see
her riches, and partake
in her rejoicing with
heaven and earth.

John Milton
   

It was a perfect spring afternoon, and the air was filled with vague,
roving scents, as if the earth exhaled the sweetness of hidden flowers.

Ellen Glasgow
    

Morning

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside'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
   

Today, look at the blue sky, hear the grass growing beneath your feet,
inhale the scent of spring, let the fruits of the earth linger on your tongue,
reach out and embrace those you love.  Ask Spirit to awaken your awareness
to the sacredness of your sensory perceptions.

Sarah Ban Breathnach
   

When the snowdrops push their green spears through the earth
I know that spring has arrived, and each year I think
what a miracle it is.  No matter how long the winter,
how hard the frost or how deep the snow, Nature triumphs.
No season is awaited so eagerly or welcomed so warmly
as spring. . . . Each year I am astonished by the wealth of flowers
the season gives us:  the subtlety of the wild primroses and violets,
the rich palette of crocus in the parks, tall soldier tulips
and proud trumpeting daffodils and narcissi.

Sheila Pickles
   

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?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.--Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

Gerald Manley Hopkins
    

fall - summer - winter

Parting from the Winter Stove

On the fifth day after the rise of Spring,
Everywhere the season's gracious attitudes!
The white sun gradually lengthening its course,
The blue-grey clouds hanging as thought they would fall;
The last icicle breaking into splinters of jade:
The new stems marshalling red sprouts.
The things I meet are all full of gladness;
It is not only I who love the spring.
To welcome the flowers I stand in the back garden;
To enjoy the sunlight I sit under the front eaves.
Yet still in my heart there lingers one regret;
Soon I shall part with the flame of my red stove!

unattributed Chinese poem, ad 822
     
    
Putting In the Seed

You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper's on the table, and we'll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree.

(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,

Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,

The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

 Robert Frost
   
    

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
   

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Spring is when you feel like whistling
even with a shoe full of slush.

Doug Larson
    
"It's so beautiful!" she said, a little breathless with her speed.
"You never saw anything so beautiful!  It has come!  I thought
it had come that other morning, but it was only coming.
It is here now!  It has come, the Spring!"

Frances Hodgson Burnett

   

Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that
the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer.

Geoffrey B. Charlesworth
   

   

It's spring fever.  That is what the name of it is.  And when
you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want,
but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!

Mark Twain

   

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant;
if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.

Anne Bradstreet

   

   

I think that no matter how old or infirm I may become,
I will always plant a large garden in the spring.  Who can resist
the feelings of hope and joy that one gets from participating in nature's rebirth?

Edward Giobbi

fall - summer - winter

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state
of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.

George Santayana
   

Spring unlocks the flowers that paint the laughing soil.

Reginald Herber