A Poem for Every Spring Day Read online

  For Eliza Esiri

  Contents

  Introduction

  March 1 I Am Taliesin Anon.

  1 from Under Milk Wood Dylan Thomas

  2 The Bright Field R. S. Thomas

  2 March Anon.

  3 Anger Against Beasts Wendell Berry

  3 Dear March – Come In Emily Dickinson

  4 Holi Chrissie Gittins

  4 A Date with Spring John Agard

  5 The River in March Ted Hughes

  5 Spring Gerard Manley Hopkins

  6 Young Lambs John Clare

  6 To my Sister William Wordsworth

  7 But These Things Also Edward Thomas

  7 The Sound Collector Roger McGough

  8 Warning Jenny Joseph

  8 Phenomenal Woman Maya Angelou

  9 The Battle of the Sexes Liz Brownlee

  9 ‘Hope’ is the Thing with Feathers Emily Dickinson

  10 Remember Christina Rossetti

  10 Knocks on the Door Maram al-Massri

  11 Green Rain Mary Webb

  11 Prior Knowledge Carol Ann Duffy

  12 Tarantella Hilaire Belloc

  12 from The Lady of Shalott Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  13 Seasons of the Heart Linton Kwesi Johnson

  13 Lochinvar Sir Walter Scott

  14 Mothering Sunday George Hare Leonard

  14 Human Affection Stevie Smith

  15 To Daffodils Robert Herrick

  15 from Julius Caesar William Shakespeare

  16 Go and Catch a Falling Star John Donne

  16 Toad Norman MacCaig

  17 Ich Am of Irlaunde Anon.

  17 He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven W. B. Yeats

  18 Spring Snow John Foster

  18 Meeting at Night Robert Browning

  19 Historical Associations Robert Louis Stevenson

  19 Three Good Things Jan Dean

  20 A Morning Song Eleanor Farjeon

  20 from Pippa Passes Robert Browning

  21 Spring Christina Rossetti

  21 Flowers and Moonlight on the Spring River Yang-Ti

  22 Spring William Blake

  22 The Trees Philip Larkin

  23 Sonnet 98 William Shakespeare

  23 in Just- E. E. Cummings

  24 The Frog and the Nightingale Vikram Seth

  24 The Knight’s Tomb Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  25 Today Billy Collins

  25 In a Station of the Metro Ezra Pound

  26 I Remember, I Remember Thomas Hood

  26 A Donkey Ted Hughes

  27 Ballad of the Bread Man Charles Causley

  27 The Donkey G. K. Chesterton

  28 I Watched a Blackbird Thomas Hardy

  28 Easter Wings George Herbert

  29 Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now A. E. Housman

  29 Easter Day Oscar Wilde

  30 Bitter State Duranka Perera

  30 The Desired Swan-Song Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  31 Against Idleness and Mischief Isaac Watts

  31 How Doth the Little Crocodile Lewis Carroll

  April 1 April Fool Louis MacNeice

  1 Jabberwocky Lewis Carroll

  2 The Walrus and the Carpenter Lewis Carroll

  2 The Mad Gardener’s Song Lewis Carroll

  3 The Jumblies Edward Lear

  3 The Spider and the Fly Mary Botham Howitt

  4 The Mock Turtle’s Song Lewis Carroll

  4 Who Killed Cock Robin? Anon.

  5 First Word (After Helen Keller) Rachel Rooney

  5 You Are Old, Father William Lewis Carroll

  6 The People of the Eastern Ice Rudyard Kipling

  6 Old Mother Hubbard Anon.

  7 from the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer

  7 Mrs Darwin Carol Ann Duffy

  8 Home-Thoughts from Abroad Robert Browning

  8 Awakening Tony Mitton

  9 The Ballad of Semmerwater William Watson

  9 Wynken, Blynken and Nod Eugene Field

  10 The Sugar-Plum Tree Eugene Field

  10 Do Not Stand at my Grave and Weep Mary Elizabeth Frye

  11 In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’ Thomas Hardy

  11 The Tickle Rhyme Ian Serraillier

  12 Dear Yuri Brian Moses

  12 Song in Space Adrian Mitchell

  13 The Song of Wandering Aengus W. B. Yeats

  13 Baisakhi Anon.

  14 The Woods and the Banks W. H. Davies

  14 O Captain! My Captain! Walt Whitman

  15 Ode on the Loss of the Titanic Geoffrey Hill

  15 The Convergence of the Twain Thomas Hardy

  16 Will Ye No Come Back Again? Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne

  16 The Skye Boat Song Sir Harold Boulton

  17 from The Waste Land T. S. Eliot

  17 Waste Land Limericks Wendy Cope

  18 I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud William Wordsworth

  18 Paul Revere’s Ride Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  19 Concord Hymn Ralph Waldo Emerson

  19 Be Like the Bird Victor Hugo

  20 I Had a Dove John Keats

  20 Cynddylan on a Tractor R. S. Thomas

  21 from The Old Vicarage, Grantchester Rupert Brooke

  21 In Memoriam (Easter 1915) Edward Thomas

  22 The Woodspurge Dante Gabriel Rossetti

  22 A Dream within a Dream Edgar Allan Poe

  23 from Richard II William Shakespeare

  23 Incident of the French Camp Robert Browning

  24 Sonnet 18 William Shakespeare

  24 from The Tempest William Shakespeare

  25 Robinson Crusoe’s Wise Sayings Ian McMillan

  25 from Henry VIII William Shakespeare

  26 Shakespeare Matthew Arnold

  26 Into my Heart an Air that Kills A. E. Housman

  27 o by the by E. E. Cummings

  27 Child’s Song in Spring Edith Nesbit

  28 Desiderata Max Ehrmann

  28 Nostos Louise Glück

  29 Dancing with Life Shauna Darling Robertson

  29 The Emperor’s Rhyme A. A. Milne

  30 The Hippopotamus’s Birthday E. V. Rieu

  30 Facing It Yusef Komunyakaa

  May 1 Verses said to written on the Union Jonathan Swift

  1 May Day Sara Teasdale

  2 The Merry Month of May Thomas Dekker

  2 Leisure W. H. Davies

  3 Tartary Walter de la Mare

  3 The Fawn Edna St Vincent Millay

  4 Back in the Playground Blues Adrian Mitchell

  4 Old Pond Matsuo Bashō

  5 Clouds Matsuo Bashō

  5 The Song of the Banana Man Evan Jones

  6 Buckingham Palace A. A. Milne

  6 To a Squirrel at Kyle-Na-No W. B. Yeats

  7 The Pobble Who Has No Toes Edward Lear

  7 You Ain’t Nothing but a Hedgehog John Cooper Clarke

  8 Why the Bat Flies at Night Roger Stevens

  8 Impromptu on Charles II John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

  9 What the teacher said when asked: What er we avin for geography, Miss? John Agard

  9 Mayfly Mary Ann Hoberman

  10 For my Niece Kae Tempest

  10 Brother Mary Ann Hoberman

  11 from Doctor Faustus Christopher Marlowe

  11 The Selkie Bride Tony Mitton

  12 Silkie Dave Calder

  12 On a Lane in Spring John Clare

  13 The Lanyard Billy Collins

  13 Swan and Shadow John Hollander

  14 Rondeau Leigh Hunt

  14 Love You More James Carter

  15 I Found a Ball of Grass among the Hay John Clare

  15 from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock T. S. Eliot

  16 Instructi
ons Neil Gaiman

  16 Apple Blossom Louis MacNeice

  17 A Handsome Young Fellow Called Frears Michael Palin

  17 Aunt Julia Norman MacCaig

  18 Matilda: Who Told Lies, and was Burned to Death Hilaire Belloc

  18 The Moment Margaret Atwood

  19 Oranges and Lemons Anon.

  19 One Art Elizabeth Bishop

  20 Courage Amelia Earhart

  20 The Mouse’s Tale Lewis Carroll

  21 Friends Polly Clark

  21 Little Orphant Annie James Whitcomb Riley

  22 Today Is Very Boring Jack Prelutsky

  22 Jim, Who Ran Away from his Nurse and was Eaten by a Lion Hilaire Belloc

  23 A Tragic Story William Makepeace Thackeray

  23 Bookworm Anon.

  24 Buddha Tony Mitton

  24 A Riddle Christina Rossetti

  25 The Riddle Song Anon.

  25 from The Ballad of Reading Gaol Oscar Wilde

  26 Full Moon Vita Sackville-West

  26 One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night Anon.

  27 God’s Grandeur Gerard Manley Hopkins

  27 M.O.R.E.R.A.P.S. Joseph Coelho

  28 I Am! John Clare

  28 Yes Adrian Mitchell

  29 from Everest Climbed Ian Serraillier

  29 There was a Young Lady whose Chin Edward Lear

  30 Life Doesn’t Frighten Me Maya Angelou

  30 Joan of Arc Florence Earle Coates

  31 The Man He Killed Thomas Hardy

  31 This is Just to Say William Carlos Williams

  Index of First Lines

  Index of Poets and Translators

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  In this new anthology, the third in a four-part cycle of seasons, you will discover some of the most lively and life-affirming poems ever to be written about spring, and many significant cultural events and historical anniversaries that lie in our calendars between 1 March and 31 May.

  There is perhaps no season that has inspired as many poets to pick up their pens (or quills) as spring. In fact, it’s almost impossible to name a writer who hasn’t responded to these months of verdant renewal and new beginnings. For Gerard Manley Hopkins, who said ‘Nothing is so beautiful as Spring’, and Christina Rossetti, who wrote ‘There is no time like Spring / When life’s alive in everything’, the season is incomparable in its vitality and splendour. And who could disagree? Not even the infamously curmudgeonly Philip Larkin, better associated with cynicism and gloom, could resist the allure of spring. I can’t walk past a blossoming tree in March without thinking of his poem ‘The Trees’ and its inviting opening line: ‘The trees are coming into leaf / Like something almost being said.’

  Given the sheer number of dazzling springtime poems that have been composed over the centuries, it’s just as well that this anthology offers you not just one, but two pieces of verse for each spring day, almost all of which have been drawn from my anthologies: A Poem for Every Day of the Year and A Poem for Every Night of the Year. The hope is that the first daily instalment imbues you with the same vivacity and energy that define a dewy spring morning, while the second poem offers an opportunity for gentle reflection and contemplation, and perhaps some ideas to mull over on a balmy night.

  As you might expect, there are entries like Wordsworth’s ‘To My Sister’, which extols the joys and sweetness of the season. Of course you’ll also find his most anthologized poem, ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’, which not only captures the essence of vernal beauty, but encourages us to wander with our minds; to draw on our memories of golden flowers and the enveloping breeze in those moments when we can’t experience them directly. But this collection isn’t just packed full of romantic, cheerful and bucolic images of nature in bloom and birthing animals. After all, for T. S. Eliot, ‘April is the cruellest month’. It certainly does tend to be rainy …

  What is more, although spring is usually synonymous with new life, growth and vigour, it is for some writers redolent of loss and death. For instance, poets such as A. E. Housman, Linton Kwesi Johnson and the 2020 Nobel Laureate Louise Glück write poignantly of how spring represents a past youth, accessible now only through nostalgic reminiscence.

  Some works are even more explicitly tragic and sobering. In his 1915 work ‘But These Things Also’, the war poet Edward Thomas reminds us that though spring offers hope, it is still inexorably shrouded by traumas past (in this case, the brutal 1914 campaigns of the First World War): ‘Spring’s here, Winter’s not gone.’ And over a hundred years later, the spoken word poet Duranka Perera composed a pain-stricken response to the terrorist attacks that wreaked devastation on Easter Sunday 2019, in his native country of Sri Lanka.

  Perera’s poem is one of several pieces in this collection that relate to specific landmark dates in the calendar rather than the season of spring. International Women’s Day on 8 March is celebrated with Maya Angelou’s anthem ‘Phenomenal Woman’; Mothering Sunday is recognized with poignant pieces by Stevie Smith and George Hare Leonard, while World Wildlife Day brings us a thought-provoking rebuke of humans’ mistreatment of animals by the poet-farmer Wendell Berry. And who better than Lewis Carroll to exhibit the joy of nonsense on April Fool’s Day?

  World-changing historical moments and events are also made immediate through the brilliance of verse. So, an extract from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar transports us to the Roman Senate on the Ides (15) of March as the eponymous general is warned about his imminent assassination; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow lets us ride alongside Paul Revere to deliver his message about the invading British on 18 April 1775, the eve of the American Revolutionary War; and Robert Browning takes us into the French camp where Emperor Napoleon chats to an injured young soldier on 23 April at the 1809 Battle of Ratisbon. Elsewhere, Carol Ann Duffy asks us to imagine what really inspired Charles Darwin to write The Origin of Species on a day out with his wife on 7 April 1852.

  The best poems are those that are able to immerse us in their worlds through their perfectly chosen words. They give us a chance to be present in the past, and to see our current world in its infinite variety. Too many of these kinds of anthologies keep us rooted in the West, and in the minds of white men. This collection seeks to champion long overlooked poets. Thanks to the diverse array of poems here, you’ll be able to travel to China, India, Pakistan, Jamaica and Sri Lanka – to name but a few – and celebrate festivals, religious (Easter and the Sikh Baisakhi) and national (Ireland’s St Patrick’s Day and Japan’s Midori no hi,) all from the comfort of your couch – or ‘inward eye’.

  The poems themselves come in all shapes and sizes. There are sonnets, ballads, limericks, odes, blank verses, rhyming couplets, haikus and cinquains, as well as extracts from epics, and snapshots from plays, on subjects as disparate as tractor dreams, hippos and the sitcom Friends.

  Each of these poems will be prefaced by a short introduction that will provide some illuminating background context – either about the poem’s author, style or content – and the occasional anecdotal gem. But this isn’t an academic book that’s been made for studying, so rest assured, you won’t find any bits of impenetrable analysis or long-winded literary digressions.

  In fact, this book has been compiled to be enjoyed by all the family. Until relatively recently, poems were never written with a particular age group in mind, and this anthology takes the view that the best poetry can work on different levels and is able to beguile children and adults alike. There are poems here for every spring day, and for every type of person to have their own favourite. I would love to hear from you which yours might be.

  Allie Esiri

  March

  1 March • I am Taliesin • Anon.

  The opening poem is in honour of St David’s Day, the feast day of the Welsh patron saint who is celebrated every 1 March. These lines, thought to have been composed in the 13th century, have been passed down through generations as part of an ancient oral tradition and introduce us to the legen
dary and much mythologized Welsh bard Taliesin.

  I am Taliesin. I sing perfect metre,

  Which will last to the end of the world.

  My patron is Elphin …

  I know why there is an echo in a hollow;

  Why silver gleams; why breath is black; why liver is bloody;

  Why a cow has horns; why a woman is affectionate;

  Why milk is white; why holly is green;

  Why a kid is bearded; why the cow-parsnip is hollow;

  Why brine is salt; why ale is bitter;

  Why the linnet is green and berries red;

  Why a cuckoo complains; why it sings;

  I know where the cuckoos of summer are in winter.

  I know what beasts there are at the bottom of the sea;

  How many spears in battle; how may drops in a shower;

  Why a river drowned Pharaoh’s people;

  Why fishes have scales.

  Why a white swan has black feet …

  I have been a blue salmon,

  I have been a dog, a stag, a roebuck on the mountain,

  A stock, a spade, an axe in the hand,

  A stallion, a bull, a buck,

  I was reaped and placed in an oven;

  I fell to the ground when I was being roasted

  And a hen swallowed me.

  For nine nights was I in her crop.

  I have been dead, I have been alive.

  I am Taliesin.

  1 March • from Under Milk Wood • Dylan Thomas

  Dylan Thomas, who was one of Wales’s finest twentieth-century poets, wrote the following lines as part of his celebrated radio play Under Milk Wood.

  Every morning when I wake,

  Dear Lord, a little prayer I make,

  O please do keep Thy lovely eye

  On all poor creatures born to die.

  And every evening at sun-down

  I ask a blessing on the town,

  For whether we last the night or no

  I’m sure is always touch-and-go.

  We are not wholly bad or good

  Who live our lives under Milk Wood,

  And Thou, I know, wilt be the first

  To see our best side, not our worst.

  O let us see another day!

  Bless us this holy night, I pray,

  And to the sun we all will bow

  And say goodbye – but just for now!