The rhyme and reason of country life

III. Spring.

Reading edition

Giles Fletcher is one of the old English poets but little known to the general reader in America. And yet he was the author of a poem of high merit. He was born about twenty years after Shakspeare, or in 1588, and came of a family marked by great poetical talent. John Fletcher, the celebrated dramatist and fellow-laborer of Beaumont, was a cousin, and it was his elder brother, Phineas Fletcher, who wrote “The Purple Island,” that singular and elaborate poetical allegory, carried out through twelve cantos, and relieved by much occasional beauty of thought and style. The father also, Dr. Giles Fletcher, has been ranked among the good poets of his day. The only work of Giles Fletcher, the son, which has been published, is of a religious character, “Christ’s Victory and Triumph,” a poem in four parts. It has never been reprinted entire in America, though full of fine passages, and marked throughout with originality and beauty. The 63subjects are of course very much of the same nature as those of “Paradise Regained;” a comparison of the two poems, however, by no means diminishes our admiration for the work of Fletcher, especially when we bear in mind that he wrote half a century before Milton. In fact, “Christ’s Victory and Triumph” was, at the time it appeared, the finest sacred poem of any length in our language; it is full of a jubilant poetical eloquence and the earnest expression of strong religious feeling connected with the subject. Giles Fetcher, like his brother Phineas, was a clergyman of the Church of England, and led an uneventful life in his country parish of Alderton, Suffolk, where he died in 1623.

A description of Spring at Easter will, it is hoped, give the reader pleasure.

THE RETURN OF SPRING IN GREECE.

FROM THE GREEK OF MELEAGER, 100 B. C.

Hush’d is the howl of wintry breezes wild;

The purple hour of youthful spring has smiled:

A livelier verdure clothes the teeming earth;

Buds press to life, rejoicing in their birth;

The laughing meadows drink the dews of night,

And fresh with opening roses glad the sight:

In song the joyous swains responsive vie;

Wild music floats and mountain melody.

Adventurous seamen spread the embosomed sail

O’er waves light heaving to the western gale;

While village youths their brows with ivy twine,

And hail with song the promise of the vine.

In curious cells the bees digest their spoil,

When vernal sunshine animates their toil,

And little birds, in warblings sweet and clear,

Salute thee, Maia, loveliest of the year:

Thee, on their deeps, the tuneful halcyons hail,

In streams the swan, in woods the nightingale.

If earth rejoices with new verdure gay,

And shepherds pipe, and flocks exulting play,

And sailors roam, and Bacchus leads his throng,

And bees to toil, and birds awake to song,

Shall the glad bard be mute in tuneful spring,

And, warm with love and joy, forget to sing?

Translation of Robert Bland.

SPRING.

FROM THE GREEK OF ANACREON.

Behold the young, the rosy spring,

Gives to the breeze her scented wing,

While virgin graces, warm with May,

Fling roses o’er her dewy way.

The murmuring billows of the deep

Have languished into silent sleep.

And mark! the flitting sea-birds lave

Their plumes in the reflecting wave;

While cranes from hoary winter fly

To flutter in a kinder sky.

Now the genial star of day

Dissolves the murky clouds away,

And cultured field and winding stream

Are freshly glittering in his beam.

Now the earth prolific swells

With leafy buds and flow’ry bells;

Gemming shoots the olive twine,

Clusters bright festoon the vine;

All along the branches creeping,

Through the velvet foliage peeping,

Little infant fruits we see

Nursing into luxury.

Translation of T. Moore.

DESCRIPTION OF SPRING.

The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings,

With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale,

The nightingale with feathers new she sings;

The turtle to her mate hath told her tale.

Summer is come, for every spray now springs;

The hart hath hung his old head on the pale,

The buck in brake his winter coat he flings;

The fishes flete with new repaired scale;

The adder all her slough away she flings;

The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale;

The busy bee her honey now she mings;

Winter is worn that was the flowers’ bale.

And thus I see among these pleasant things

Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, 1516–1547.

SPRING.

FROM THE “THISTLE AND THE ROSE.”

Quhen Merche wes with variand windis past,

And Appryll had with hir silver shouris

Tane leif at Nature, with ane orient blast,

And lusty May, that muddir is of flouris,

Had maid the birdis to begyn thair houris,

Amang the tendir odouris reid and quhyt

Quhois harmony to heir it was delyt:

In bed at morrow sleiping as I lay,

Methocht Aurora, with her crystall ene

In at the window lukit by the day,

And halsit me with visage pale and grene;

On quhois hand a lark sang, fro the splene,

“Awak, luvaris, out of your slemering,

Se how the lusty morrow dois upspring!”

Methocht fresche May befoir my bed upstude,

In weid depaynt of mony diverse hew,

Sober, benyng, and full of mansuetude,

In bright atteir of flouris forgit new,

Hevinly of color, quhyt, reid, brown, and blew,

Balmit in dew, and gilt with Phebus’ bemys;

Quhil al the house illumynit of her lemys.

William Dunbar, 1465–1530.

ON SPRING.

Sweet Spring, thou com’st with all thy goodly train,

Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright with flow’rs,

The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain,

The clouds for joy in pearls weep down their show’rs.

Sweet Spring, thou com’st—but, ah! my pleasant hours

And happy days with thee come not again;

The sad memorials only of my pain

Do with thee come, which turns my sweets to sours.

Thou art the same which still thou wert before,

Delicious, lusty, amiable, fair;

But she whose breath embalm’d thy wholesome air

Is gone; nor gold, nor gems, can her restore.

Neglected virtues, seasons go and come,

When thine forgot lie closed in a tomb.

66What doth it serve to see the sun’s bright face,

And skies enamell’d with the Indian gold?

Or the moon in a fierce chariot roll’d,

And all the glory of that starry place?

What doth it serve earth’s beauty to behold,

The mountain’s pride, the meadow’s flow’ry grace,

The stately comeliness of forests old,

The sport of floods which would themselves embrace?

What doth it serve to hear the sylvans’ songs,

The cheerful thrush, the nightingale’s sad strains,

Which in dark shades seem to deplore my wrongs?

For what doth serve all that this world contains,

Since she for whom those once to me were dear,

Can have no part of them now with me here?

William Drummond, 1585–1649.

SONNET ON SPRING.

FROM THE FRENCH.

Now Time throws off his cloak again

Of ermined frost, and cold, and rain,

And clothes him in the embroidery

Of glittering sun, and clear, blue sky.

With beast and bird the forest rings,

Each in his jargon cries or sings;

And Time throws off his cloak again

Of ermined frost, and cold, and rain.

River and fount, and tinkling brook,

Wear in their dainty livery

Drops of silver jewelry;

In new-made suit they merry look;

And Time throws off his cloak again

Of ermined frost, and cold, and rain.

Charles, Duke of Orleans, 1391.

SPRING, AT EASTER.

FROM “CHRIST’S TRIUMPH AND VICTORY.”

But now the second morning from her bower,

Began to glister in her beams; and now

The roses of the day began to flower

In the Eastern garden; for heaven’s smiling brow,

Half insolent for joy, began to show:

The early sun came dancing lively out,

And the brag lambs ran wantoning about,

That heaven and earth might seem in triumph both to shout.

67The engladdened Spring, forgetful now to weep,

Began to eblazon from her leafy bed;

The waking swallow broke her half-year’s sleep,

And every bush lay deeply purpured

With violets; the woods’ late wintry head

Wide flaming primroses set all on fire,

And his bald trees put on their green attire,

Among whose infant leaves the joyous birds conspire.

And now the taller sons, whom Titan warms,

Of unshorn mountains, blown with easy winds,

Dandled the morning’s childhood in their arms;

And, if they chanced to slip the prouder pines,

The under corylass^[8] did catch the shines,

To gild their leaves: saw ne’er happier year

Such triumph and triumphant cheer,

As though the aged world anew created were.

Say, Earth, why hast thou got thee new attire,

And stick’st thy habit full of daisies red?

Seems that thou dost to some high thought aspire,

And some new-found-out bridegroom mean’st to wed:

Tell me, ye trees, so fresh apparelled—

So never let the spiteful canker waste you,

So never let the heavens with lightning blast you!

Why go you now so trimly drest, or whither haste you?

Answer me, Jordan, why thy crooked tide

So often wanders from his nearest way,

As though some other way thy streams would slide,

And join salute the place where something lay?

And you, sweet birds, that, shaded from the ray,

Sit carolling, and piping grief away,

The while the lambs to hear you dance and play—

Tell me, sweet birds, what is it you so fain would say?

And thou, fair spouse of Earth, that every year

Gett’st such a numerous issue of thy bride,

How chance thou hotter shin’st, and draw’st more near?

Sure thou somewhere some worthy sight hast spied,

That in one place for joy thou canst not bide:

And you, dead swallows, that so lively now,

Through the slit air your winged passage row;

How could new life into your frozen ashes flow?

68Ye primroses and purple violets,

Tell me, why blaze ye from your leafy bed,

And woo men’s hands to rent you from your sets,

As though you would somewhere be carried,

With fresh perfumes and velvets garnished?

But ah! I need not ask; ’tis surely so;

You all would to your Saviour’s triumph go:

There would you all await, and humble homage do.

There should the Earth herself, with garlands new,

And lovely flowers embellish’d adore:

Such roses never in her garland grew;

Such lilies never in her breast she wore;

Like beauty never yet did shine before.

There should the Sun another Sun behold,

From whence himself borrows his locks of gold,

That kindle Heaven and Earth with beauties manifold.

There might the violet and primrose sweet,

Beams of more lively and more lovely grace,

Arising from their beds of incense, meet;

There should the swallow see new life embrace

Dead ashes, and the grave unvail his face,

To let the living from his bowels creep,

Unable longer his own dead to keep;

There Heaven and Earth should see their Lord awake from sleep.

* * * * *

“Toss up your heads, ye everlasting gates,

And let the Prince of Glory enter in!

At whose brave volley of sidereal states,

The sun to blush, and stars grow pale, were seen;

When leaping first from earth, he did begin

To climb his angel wings: then open hang

Your crystal doors!” so all the chorus sang

Of heavenly birds, as to the stars they nimbly sprang.

Hark! how the floods clap their applauding hands,

The pleasant valleys singing for delight;

The wanton mountains dance about the lands,

The while the fields, struck with the heavenly light,

Set all their flowers a smiling at the sight;

The trees laugh with their blossoms, and the sound

Of the triumphant shout of praise, that crown’d

The flaming Lamb, breaking through heaven, hath passage found.

Giles Fletcher, 1588–1623.

THE AIRS OF SPRING.

Sweetly breathing, vernal air,

That with kind warmth doth repair

Winter’s ruins; from whose breast

All the gums and spice of th’ East

Borrow their perfumes; whose eye

Gilds the morn, and clears the sky;

Whose disheveled tresses shed

Pearls upon the violet bed;

On whose brow, with calm smiles drest,

The halcyon sits and builds her nest;

Beauty, youth, and endless spring,

Dwell upon thy rosy wing!

Thou, if stormy Boreas throws

Down whole forests when he blows,

With a pregnant, flowery birth,

Canst refresh the teeming earth.

If he nip the early bud;

If he blast what’s fair or good;

If he scatter our choice flowers;

If he shake our halls or bowers;

If his rude breath threaten us,

Thou canst stroke great Æolus,

And from him the grace obtain,

To bind him in an iron chain.

Thomas Carew, 1600.

RETURN OF SPRING.

FROM THE FRENCH.

God shield ye, heralds of the spring,

Ye faithful swallows, fleet of wing,

Houps, cuckoos, nightingales,

Turtles, and every wilder bird,

That make your hundred chirpings heard

Through the green woods and dales.

God shield ye, Easter daisies all,

Fair roses, buds, and blossoms small,

And he whom erst the gore

Of Ajax and Narciss did print,

Ye wild thyme, anise, balm, and mint,

I welcome ye once more.

70God shield ye, bright embroider’d train

Of butterflies, that on the plain,

Of each sweet herblet sip;

And ye, new swarms of bees, that go

Where the pink flowers and yellow grow

To kiss them with your lip.

A hundred thousand times I call—

A hearty welcome on ye all:

This season how I love!

This merry din on every shore,

For winds and storms, whose sullen roar

Forbade my steps to rove.

0Anonymous Translation. Pierre Ronsard, 1524–1586.

ODE TO SPRING.

Sweet daughter of a rough and stormy sire,

Hoar Winter’s blooming child—delightful Spring!

Whose unshorn locks with leaves

And swelling buds are crown’d;

From the green islands of eternal youth,

Crown’d with fresh blooms and ever-springing shade,

Turn, thither turn thy step,

O thou whose powerful voice,

More sweet than softest touch of Doric reed,

Or Lydian flute, can soothe the madding wind,

And through the stormy deep

Breathe thine own tender calm.

Thee, best beloved! the virgin train await

With songs, and festal rites, and joy to rove

Thy blooming wilds among,

And vales and dewy lawns,

With untired feet; and cull thy earliest sweets

To weave fresh garlands for the glowing brow

Of him, the favored youth,

That prompts their whispered sigh.

Unlock thy copious stores—those tender showers

That drop their sweetness on the infant buds;

And silent dews that swell

The milky ear’s green stem,

71And feed the flowering osier’s early shoots;

And call those winds which through the whispering boughs

With warm and pleasant breath

Salute the blowing flowers.

Now let me sit beneath the whitening thorn,

And mark thy spreading tints steal o’er the dale;

And watch with patient eye,

Thy fair, unfolding charms.

O nymph, approach! while yet the temperate sun

With bashful forehead through the cold, moist air,

Throws his young maiden beams,

And with chaste kisses woos

The earth’s fair bosom; while the streaming vail

Of lucid clouds, with kind and frequent shade

Protects thy modest blooms

From his severer blaze.

Sweet is thy reign, but short; the red dog-star

Shall scorch thy tresses; and the mower’s scythe

Thy greens, thy flowerets all,

Remorseless shall destroy,

Reluctant shall I bid thee then farewell;

For O, not all that Autumn’s lap contains

Nor Summer’s ruddiest fruits

Can aught for thee atone,

Fair Spring! whose simplest promise more delights

Than all their largest wealth, and through the heart

Each joy and new-born hope

With softest influence breathes.

Anne Letitia Barbauld, 1743–1825.

THE FLOWER.

How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean

Are thy returns! ev’n as the flow’rs in spring;

To which, besides their own demean,

The late past frost’s tributes of pleasure bring:

Grief melts away,

Like snow in May,

As if there were no such cold thing.

72Who would have thought my shrivel’d heart

Could have recover’d greenness? It was gone

Quite under ground, as flowers depart

To see their mother-root, when they have blown;

Where they together,

All the hard weather,

Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

These are thy wonders, Lord of power!

Thrilling and quick’ning, bringing down to hell,

And up to heaven in an hour;

Making a chiming of a passing bell.

We say amiss,

This or that is:

Thy word is all, if we would spell.

Oh, that I once past changing were

Fast in thy Paradise, where no flow’r can wither!

Many a spring I shot up fair,

Offering at heav’n, growing and groaning thither:

Nor doth my flower

Want a spring-shower,

My sins and I joining together.

But while I grow in a straight line,

Still upward bent, as if heav’n were mine own,

Thy anger comes, and I decline:

What frost to that? What pole is not the zone,

Where all things burn,

When thou dost turn,

And the least frown of thine is shown?

And now in age I bud again;

After so many deaths I live and write,

I once more smell the dew and rain,

And relish versing. O, my only light,

It can not be,

That I am he,

On whom thy tempests fell all night!

These are thy wonders, Lord of love!

To make us see we are but flow’rs that glide;

Which, when we once can find and prove,

Thou hast a garden for us, where to bide.

Who would be more,

Swelling through store,

Forfeit their Paradise by their pride,

George Herbert, 1598–1632.

ODE.

FROM THE TURKISH.

Hear! how the nightingales on every spray,

Hail, in wild notes, the sweet return of May:

The gale, that o’er yon waving almond blows,

The verdant bank with silver blossoms strews;

The smiling season decks each flowery glade.