Belated Spring Poems
Right, so I do realize that the equinox was a couple of weeks ago, but hey, it only just stopped raining here and it's still before Easter, so I submit my annual Spring Poem below. This is one that I used to think too morbid for Spring, but I don't think of it that way anymore. Rather the opposite, eh? "Gather we rosebuds while we may..."

33.

LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.


Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

~A. E. Housman

(For an actually morbid take, see this parody by Garrison Keillor (scroll halfway down the page)).

To make up for being late on the Spring poem, here's an Extra Bonus Poem!! It's not seasonal, but I'm finding it highly relevant at the moment. Also, my cousin has told me the story of a peak moment in her life, when as part of a school show she recited this with the finale of Dvorak's 9th symphony in the background. You know the words, so sing along!

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

~Rudyard Kipling
- posted by k @ 9:12 AM