Our anthology of poems celebrating spring begins with a selection of classics:
- Tu Fu,
“A Spring View” (c. 750), translated by Witter Bynner
- Li Po,
“Waking from Drunkenness on a Spring Day” (c. 750), translated by Arthur Waley
- William Shakespeare,
“Spring,” song from Love’s Labors Lost (1598)
- Thomas Nashe,
“Spring, the Sweet Spring,” from Summer’s Last Will and Testament (1600)
- William Shakespeare,
Sonnet 98 - “From you have I been absent in the spring” (1609)
- John Webster,
“Vanitas Vanitatum,” from The Devil’s Law Case (1623)
- Thomas Carew,
“The Spring” (1640)
- Robert Herrick,
“Corinna’s Going a-Maying” (1648)
- Matsuo Basho,
“Spring Rain,” “Spring Air” and Four Haiku (c. 1680)
- William Blake,
“To Spring” (1783)
- Robert Burns,
“Composed in Spring” (1786)
- William Wordsworth,
“Lines Written in Early Spring” (1798)
- Kobayashi Issa,
“Three Spring Haiku” (1804, 1818)
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
“Work Without Hope” (1825)
- Christina Rossetti,
“Spring Quiet” (1847)
- Walt Whitman,
“These I, Singing in Spring” (1860)
- Emily Dickinson,
“A Light exists in Spring” (#812)
- Emily Dickinson,
“A little madness in the Spring” (#1333)
- Robert Frost,
“A Prayer in Spring” (1915)
- Robert Frost,
“Two Tramps in Mud Time” (1934)
- D.H. Lawrence,
“The Enkindled Spring” (1916)
- Amy Lowell,
“Spring Day” (1916)
- Robert Louis Stevenson,
“Spring Carol” (1918)
- Gerard Manley Hopkins,
“Spring” (1918)
- John Clare,
“Young Lambs” (1920)
- Carl Sandburg,
“Three Spring Notations on Bipeds” (1920)
- e.e. cummings,
“in Just-” (1920)
- William Carlos Williams,
“March” (1921)
- Edna St. Vincent Millay,
“Spring” (1921)
- A.E. Housman,
“Spring Morning” (1922)
To which we’ve added a selection of the new poems on spring themes we’ve received from contemporary poets around the world:
- Denis Dunn, “@ 6:13 march morning”
- Michael Graves, “Poem to Spring in a Time of Global Warming”
- Dorothea Grossman, “Spring”
- Ruth Hill, “Light Advancing Through Trees” and “Awe”
- Doug Holder, “Spring On School Street. Somerville, Mass.”
- Margaret James, “Sunday” and “March 18”
- Wayne Jarus, “The Flower Garden”
- Guy Kettelhack, “Dithyramb for Springtime”
- Christine Klocek-Lim, “First Crocus”
- Steve Meador, “The Morning After”
- Justine Nicholas, “Quinquagesima” and “Magnolia”
- Jack Peachum, “Virginia in Spring” and “Epiphany in Carolina”
- Don Rehling, “Mountains Melting”
- Lisa Shields, “Calling Card” and “Pinked”
- Larissa Shmailo, “Spring Vow”
- Ingrid Toth, “Spring 1946”
- Melissa Varnavas, “Ashley’s Garden”
- Bill Vartnaw, “Spring”
Enjoy these poems of the season!
