SMS UF YE FOOL

For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
the flowers appear on the earth;
the time of the singing of birds is come,
and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.

Dropped off
body and mind -
weeding new cuttings.

All the wild sweetness of the flower
Tangled against the wall.
It was that magic, silent hour....
The branches grew so tall
They twined themselves into a bower.
The sun shown ... and the fall
Of yellow blossom on the grass!
You feel that golden rain?
Both of you could not hold, alas,
(both of you tried, in vain)
A memory, stranger. So I pass....
It will not come again.

The years at spring
And days at the morn;
Mornings at seven;
The hill sidess dew-pearled;
The larks on the wing;
The snails on the thorn;
Gods in his heaven -
Alls right with the world!

How many million Aprils came
before I ever knew
how white a cherry bough could be,
a bed of squills, how blue
And many a dancing April
when life is done with me,
will lift the blue flame of the flower
and the white flame of the tree
Oh burn me with your beauty then,
oh hurt me tree and flower,
lest in the end death try to take
even this glistening hour...

No Winter lasts forever, no Spring skips its turn.
April is a promise that May is bound to keep, and we know it.

Meadowlarks
give lusty cheers
when spring appears
when spring appears.
Buds and seeds
prick up their ears
and blades of grass
show eager spears.
And only icicles
weep tears
when spring appears
when spring appears.

Spring has again returned.
The Earth is like a child that knows many poems.
Many, O so many. For the hardship
of such long learning she receives the prize.
Strict was her teacher.
The white in the old mans beard pleases us.
Now, what to call green, to call blue,
we dare to ask: She knows, She knows!

My wretched feet, flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp
air of January, began to heal and subside under the gentler
breathings of April; the nights and mornings no longer by their
Canadian temperature froze the very blood in our veins; we
could now endure the play-hour passed in the garden.

In my old home
which I forsook, the cherries
are in bloom.

Late April and you are three; today
We dug your garden in the yard.
To curb the damage of your play,
Strange dogs at night and the moles tunneling,
Four slender sticks of lath stand guard
Uplifting their thin string.
So you were the first to tramp it down.
And after the earth was sifted close
You brought your watering can to drown
All earth and us. But these mixed seeds are pressed
With light loam in their steadfast rows.
Child, weve done our best.

Break open
A cherry tree
And there are no flowers;
But the spring breeze
Brings forth myriad blossoms

When April scatters charms of primrose gold
Among the copper leaves in thickets old,
And singing skylarks from the meadows rise,
To twinkle like black stars in sunny skies;
When I can hear the small woodpecker ring
Time on a tree for all the birds that sing;
And hear the pleasant cuckoo, loud and long --
The simple bird that thinks two notes a song.

One swallow does not make a spring,
nor does one fine day.

Science has never drummed up quite as effective a tranquilizing agent as a sunny spring day.

Dirty days hath September
April June and November
From January up to May
The rain it raineth every day
All the rest have thirty-one
Without a blessed gleam of sun
And if any of them had two-and-thirty
Theyd be just as wet and twice as dirty.

Cherry Blossoms, cherry blossoms.
On mountains, in villages.
As far as you can see.
They look like fog or clouds. They are fragrant in the morning sun.
Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms.
In full bloom.

Sakura, Sakura.
Noyamamo satomo
Miwatasu kagiri.
Kasumi-ka kumo-ka.... asahi-ni niou
Sakura, Sakura,
Hanazakari.

Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless? To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds and be unaware of the passing of the spring - these are even more deeply moving. Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with flowers are worthier of our admiration.

Spring, the sweet Spring, is the years pleasant king;
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing--
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay--
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,
In every street these tunes our ears do greet--
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
Spring, the sweet Spring!

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April dressd in all his trim
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laughd and leapd with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seemd it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.

Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go;
it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow.

Just sitting quietly, doing nothing,
Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.

Spring slattern of seasons
you have soggy legs
and a muddy petticoat
drowsy
is your hair your
eyes are sticky with
dream and you have a sloppy body from
being brought to bed of crocuses
when you sing in your whisky voice
the grass rises on the head of the earth
and all the trees are put on edge
spring
of the excellent jostle of
thy hips
and the superior

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.

Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of springs unclouded weather,
In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat!
And birds and flowers once more to greet,
My last years friends together.

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower--but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

Spring in the world! And all things are made new!

All that is sweet, delightful, and amiable in this world, in the serenity of the air, the fineness of seasons, the joy of light, the melody of sounds, the beauty of colors, the fragrance of smells, the splendor our precious stones, is nothing else but Heaven breaking through the veil of this world, manifesting itself in such a degree and darting forth in such variety so much of its own nature.

An altered look about the hills;
A Tyrian light the village fills;
A wider sunrise in the dawn;
A deeper twilight on the lawn;
A print of a vermilion foot;
A purple finger on the slope;
A flippant fly upon the pane;
A spider at his trade again;
An added strut in chanticleer;
A flower expected everywhere ...

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.

This outward spring and garden are a reflection of the inward garden.

And fairy month of waking mirth
From whom our joys ensue
Thou early gladder of the earth
Thrice welcome here anew
With thee the bud unfolds to leaves
The grass greens on the lea
And flowers their tender boon receives
To bloom and smile with thee.

We do not ask what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens... The diversity of the phenomena of Nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment.

Ahh, the wide almond groves in full white flower
Stunning in the morning sun.
Old naked Winter in his garb of grays and browns has run.
Forsythia blooms come and go in the blink of a yellow Eye,
Then, suddenly, mysteriously, Green erupts; and we sigh.

In snowbound,
voiceless,
mountain depths,
to herald spring,
pine trees sound in tune.

In the glow of the dawn,
Welcome a new day,
Greet the golden sunlight or rain,
Nature in all its subtlety.
Whip of the wind,
Earth unfolds,
Softly falling rain,
Growing plants and buds blossoming.
Visions of the earth, with glories of nature,
Beauty of the daffodils,
Sunshine and rain from a rainbow,
Awe! Nature in full bloom.

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?

Spring makes everything young again except man.

Poets and songwriters speak highly of spring as one of the great joys of life in the temperate zone, but in the real world most of spring is disappointing. We looked forward to it too long, and the spring we had in mind in February was warmer and dryer than the actual spring when it finally arrives. We’d expected it to be a whole season, like winter, instead of a handful of separate moments and single afternoons.

So Spring comes merry towards me here, but earns
No answering smile from me, whose life is twind
With the dead boughs that winter still must bind,
And whom today the Spring no more concerns.
Behold, this crocus is a withering flame;
This snowdrop, snow; this apple-blossoms part
To breed the fruit that breeds the serpents art.
Nay, for these Spring-flowers, turn thy face from them,
Nor stay till on the years last lily-stem
The white cup shrivels round the golden heart.

Beauty is a form of genius - is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon.

April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden.

Flower god, god of the spring, beautiful, bountiful,
Cold-dyed shield in the sky, lover of versicles,
Here I wander in April
Cold, grey-headed; and still to my
Heart, Spring comes with a bound, Spring the deliverer,
Spring, song-leader in woods, chorally resonant;
Spring, flower-planter in meadows,
Child-conductor in willowy
Fields deep dotted with bloom, daisies and crocuses:
Here that child from his heart drinks of eternity:
O child, happy are children!

Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices
instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable
shrieking into the heart of the night.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie.

From some home a jade flute sends dark notes drifting,
Scattering on the spring wind that fills Lo-yang.
Tonight, if we should hear the willow-breaking song,
Who could help but long for the gardens of home?

No days such honored days as these! While yet
Fair Aphrodite reigned, men seeking wide
For some fair thing which should forever bide
On earth, her beauteous memory to set
In fitting frame that no age could forget,
Her name in lovely Aprils name did hide,
And leave it there, eternally allied
To all the fairest flowers Spring did beget.