When is the Spring born?

None can say - unannounced, she's there;

Opening the year's door

To the day, shaking free her hair

Touching the new flowers

One by one, with her finger-tips,

Kissing the young world

Just for fun, with her younger lips.

 

Summer, the sun-soaked,

Brown of 1imb, honey-warm, feet bare,

Seeking the sweet cool

Water's rim, in the too-still air.

Summer, the full time -

Long, long, long, go the blue days by;

Play is a gay thing,

Work a song, to the towering sky.

 

Autumn, the painter,

Palette thick, with his browns and reds;

Mellow his canvas -

Ripe to pick are the apple-heads.

Scarlet the combine

Thrusting out, where the corn is gold;

But the first bite of

Frost's about, as the year grows old.

 

Winter; the chill earth

 Falls asleep, in the grateful dark;

Sap of the new year

Slumbers deep, in the tree's grey bark.

Close are the doors shut,

Windows glow, in the homes of men;

Waiting the day when

Snowdrops show, and it's Spring again.

 

(Copyright Stewart Farrar, 1970)