Today walking through the park, there was no beautiful sunrise to see (it was cloudy) but we did hear the loveliest sounds of birdsong - so clear and cheerful, that it made me think of spring!
I know it's a few weeks yet before the earth begins to shed its winter coat, but it definitely felt more like spring than winter today. I found this poem, by Thomas Carew, which makes me think of the birdsong, the sweetness, the brightness and freshness of spring, which will be so very welcome when it does arrive! It was written in 1640, but the words are just as relevant today as they were when they were written, I think.
Now that the winter’s gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes; and now no more the frost
Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream:
But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo and the humble-bee.
Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring,
In triumph to the world, the youthful spring:
The valleys, hills, and woods in rich array
Welcome the coming of the long’d-for May.
Now all things smile: only my love doth lower,
Nor hath the scalding noon-day sun the power
To melt that marble ice, which still doth hold
Her heart congeal’d, and makes her pity cold.
The ox, which lately did for shelter fly
Into the stall, doth now securely lie
In open fields; and love no more is made
By the fire-side, but in the cooler shade
Amyntas now doth with his Chloris sleep
Under a sycamore, and all things keep
Time with the season: only she doth carry
June in her eyes, in her heart January.
