A Poem for Every Spring Day Read online

  Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

  Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

  Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

  And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

  Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

  And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;

  And every fair from fair sometime declines,

  By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d:

  But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

  Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

  Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade

  When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

  So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

  So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

  24 April • from The Tempest • William Shakespeare

  The character of Caliban in Shakespeare’s The Tempest is one of his most controversial and intriguing creations. While he is often described as a monster, Shakespeare also gives him lines which convey a very human, sensitive side.

  Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,

  Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.

  Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

  Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices

  That, if I then had waked after long sleep,

  Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,

  The clouds methought would open and show riches

  Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,

  I cried to dream again.

  25 April • Robinson Crusoe’s Wise Sayings • Ian McMillan

  Robinson Crusoe, popularly thought of as the very first English novel, was published this day in 1719. Written by Daniel Defoe, the book originally listed ‘Robinson Crusoe’ as its author, and, as the novel wasn’t a familiar form of storytelling, it was read by many people as an authentic autobiography and travel journal. Ian McMillan’s amusing poem extracts wisdom from Robinson’s hardships.

  You can never have too many turtle eggs.

  I’m the most interesting person in this room.

  A beard is as long as I want it to be.

  The swimmer on his own doesn’t need trunks.

  A tree is a good clock.

  If you talk long enough to a rock you’ll fall asleep.

  I know it’s Christmas because I cry.

  Waving at ships is useless.

  Footprints make me happy, unless they’re my own.

  25 April • from Henry VIII • William Shakespeare

  This poem is taken from Henry VIII, a history play attributed to Shakespeare and John Fletcher. The poem takes as its subject the mythical figure Orpheus and the power of music. In Greek myth, Orpheus was a musician so talented that even inanimate objects such as stones were charmed by his music.

  Orpheus with his lute made trees,

  And the mountain tops that freeze,

  Bow themselves when he did sing:

  To his music plants and flowers

  Ever sprung; as sun and showers

  There had made a lasting spring.

  Every thing that heard him play,

  Even the billows of the sea,

  Hung their heads, and then lay by.

  In sweet music is such art,

  Killing care and grief of heart

  Fall asleep, or hearing, die.

  26 April • Shakespeare • Matthew Arnold

  Shakespeare is regarded by many as the most influential writer in the history of English literature. He even fundamentally altered the English language, inventing over 1,700 new words! Matthew Arnold, a well-respected Victorian poet and critic, remembers Shakespeare in his own sonnet, published in 1849. In it, Arnold expresses his awe at Shakespeare’s writing, marking him as one of the greatest writers of all time and mourning his death. Shakespeare’s astonishing body of work has stood the test of time, and Matthew Arnold’s sonnet is one of many love letters addressed to him, in the form made popular by the man himself.

  Others abide our question. Thou art free.

  We ask and ask – Thou smilest and art still,

  Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,

  Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,

  Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,

  Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,

  Spares but the cloudy border of his base

  To the foil’d searching of mortality;

  And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,

  Self-school’d, self-scann’d, self-honour’d, self-secure,

  Didst tread on earth unguess’d at. – Better so!

  All pains the immortal spirit must endure,

  All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,

  Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.

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

  This poem’s rhetorical questions, about ‘blue remembered hills’, have become widely quoted. The poem is about the inaccessibility of memory and the past – we cannot get back to where we once were, but can only live our lives in the present.

  Into my heart an air that kills

  From yon far country blows:

  What are those blue remembered hills,

  What spires, what farms are those?

  That is the land of lost content,

  I see it shining plain,

  The happy highways where I went

  And cannot come again.

  27 April • o by the by • E. E. Cummings

  E. E. Cummings wrote around 2,900 poems, all unconventional, and all experimental. Many of his poems don’t seem to make sense at all – but that’s entirely intentional! Instead of trying to get everything to make sense, try just enjoying the flow of words and sounds. In this poem, being with someone is like flying your dreams as you would fly a kite.

  o by the by

  has anybody seen

  little you-i

  who stood on a green

  hill and threw

  his wish at blue

  with a swoop and a dart

  out flew his wish

  (it dived like a fish

  but it climbed like a dream)

  throbbing like a heart

  singing like a flame

  blue took it my

  far beyond far

  and high beyond high

  bluer took it your

  but bluest took it our

  away beyond where

  what a wonderful thing

  is the end of a string

  (murmurs little you-i

  as the hill becomes nil)

  and will somebody tell

  me why people let go

  27 April • Child’s Song in Spring • Edith Nesbit

  Edith Nesbit was a poet and an author, and she wrote adventure stories such as Five Children and It and The Railway Children, but in this poem her inspiration comes from something more familiar – trees in spring.

  The Silver Birch is a dainty lady,

  She wears a satin gown;

  The elm tree makes the old churchyard shady,

  She will not live in town.

  The English oak is a sturdy fellow,

  He gets his green coat late;

  The willow is smart in a suit of yellow

  While brown the beech trees wait.

  Such a gay green gown God gives the larches –

  As green as he is good!

  The hazels hold up their arms for arches,

  When spring rides through the wood.

  The chestnut’s proud, and the lilac’s pretty,

  The poplar’s gentle and tall,

  But the plane tree’s kind to the poor dull city –

  I love him best of all!

  28 April • Desiderata • Max Ehrmann

  ‘Desiderata’ is the most well-known work by the American poet Max Ehrmann. It is a prose poem – a type of writing, as
you might expect, somewhere in between poetry and prose. So, while Ehrmann doesn’t use rhyme or metre or regular stanza lengths, he does use the sort of language, imagery and metaphors we associate with poetry. Ehrmann’s words offer advice and encouragement, both spiritual and practical, and at its centre are two words: ‘Be yourself’.

  Go placidly amid the noise and haste,

  and remember what peace there may be in silence.

  As far as possible without surrender

  be on good terms with all persons.

  Speak your truth quietly and clearly;

  and listen to others,

  even the dull and the ignorant;

  they too have their story.

  Avoid loud and aggressive persons,

  they are vexations to the spirit.

  If you compare yourself with others,

  you may become vain and bitter;

  for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

  Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

  Keep interested in your own career, however humble;

  it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

  Exercise caution in your business affairs;

  for the world is full of trickery.

  But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;

  many persons strive for high ideals;

  and everywhere life is full of heroism.

  Be yourself.

  Especially, do not feign affection.

  Neither be cynical about love;

  for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment

  it is as perennial as the grass.

  Take kindly the counsel of the years,

  gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

  Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.

  But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.

  Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

  Beyond a wholesome discipline,

  be gentle with yourself.

  You are a child of the universe,

  no less than the trees and the stars;

  you have a right to be here.

  And whether or not it is clear to you,

  no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

  Therefore be at peace with God,

  whatever you conceive Him to be,

  and whatever your labors and aspirations,

  in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

  With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,

  it is still a beautiful world.

  Be cheerful.

  Strive to be happy.

  28 April • Nostos • Louise Glück

  The great American poet Louise Glück received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature ‘for her unmistakable poetic voice that, with austere beauty, makes individual existence universal’. That is certainly the case for this wonderfully poignant poem which follows her personal reflections on the natural surroundings that defined her childhood, before inviting us, with a unifying ‘we’, to share in an observation about our collective perceptions and memories.

  There was an apple tree in the yard —

  this would have been

  forty years ago – behind,

  only meadows. Drifts

  of crocus in the damp grass.

  I stood at that window:

  late April. Spring

  flowers in the neighbor’s yard.

  How many times, really, did the tree

  flower on my birthday,

  the exact day, not

  before, not after? Substitution

  of the immutable

  for the shifting, the evolving.

  Substitution of the image

  for relentless earth. What

  do I know of this place,

  the role of the tree for decades

  taken by a bonsai, voices

  rising from the tennis courts —

  Fields. Smell of the tall grass, new cut.

  As one expects of a lyric poet.

  We look at the world once, in childhood.

  The rest is memory.

  29 April • Dancing with Life • Shauna Darling Robertson

  29 April is International Dance Day, in global celebration of the art of dance – from tap-dance to tango, and ballet to breakdance.

  I beckoned to the floor

  missed buses and lost races.

  We body-popped till sore.

  I held out my hand

  to every failed exam.

  We lindy-hopped. We can-canned.

  I slipped my arm around the waist

  of chicken, loser, nerd.

  We skip-jived at a pace.

  I chose the longest, dullest week

  and pressed it to my chest

  as we cha-cha’d cheek to cheek.

  I tipped and doffed my hat

  to a hundred horrid haircuts.

  We mambo’d, tango’d, tapped.

  Feeling bold, I turned to face

  my darkest, rawest faults.

  I took them in my arms, we bowed

  and broke into a waltz.

  29 April • The Emperor’s Rhyme • A. A. Milne

  This jaunty poem features a fair amount of rhyming, which makes it easy to learn off by heart. Just don’t try to do the sums in your head!

  The King of Peru

  (Who was Emperor too)

  Had a sort of a rhyme

  Which was useful to know,

  If he felt very shy

  When a stranger came by,

  Or they asked him the time

  When his watch didn’t go;

  or supposing he fell

  (By mistake) down the well,

  Or he tumbled when skating

  And sat on his hat,

  Or perhaps wasn’t told,

  Till his porridge was cold,

  That his breakfast was waiting –

  Or something like that;

  Oh, whenever the Emperor

  got into a temper, or

  Felt himself sulky or sad,

  He would murmur and murmur,

  Until he felt firmer,

  This curious rhyme which he had:

  ‘Eight eights are sixty-four;

  Multiply by seven.

  When it’s done,

  Carry one,

  And take away eleven.

  Nine nines are eighty-one;

  Multiply by three.

  If it’s more,

  Carry four,

  And then it’s time for tea.’

  So whenever the Queen

  Took his armour to clean,

  And didn’t remember

  To use any starch;

  Or his birthday (in May)

  Was a horrible day,

  Being wet as November

  And windy as March;

  Or, if sitting in state

  With the Wise and the Great

  He happened to hiccup

  While signing his name,

  Or The Queen gave a cough,

  When his crown tumbled off

  As he bent down to pick up

  A pen for the same;

  Oh, whenever the Emperor

  Got into a temper, or

  Felt himself awkward or shy,

  He would whisper and whisper,

  Until he felt crisper,

  This odd little rhyme to the sky.

  ‘Eight eights are eighty-one;

  Multiply by seven.

  When it’s done,

  Carry one,

  And take away eleven.

  Nine nines are sixty-four;

  Multiply by three.

  When it’s done,

  Carry one,

  And then it’s time for tea.’

  30 April • The Hippopotamus’s Birthday • E. V. Rieu

  Although E. V. Rieu was well-known for his hugely successful translation of The Odyssey, his humorous poetry for children suggests that he didn’
t spend all of his time on the classics.

  He has opened all his parcels

  but the largest and the last;

  His hopes are at their highest

  and his heart is beating fast.

  O happy Hippopotamus,

  what lovely gift is here?

  He cuts the string. The world stands still.

  A pair of boots appear!

  O little Hippopotamus,

  the sorrows of the small!

  He dropped two tears to mingle

  with the flowing Senegal;

  And the ‘Thank you’ that he uttered

  was the saddest ever heard

  In the Senegambian jungle

  from the mouth of beast or bird.

  30 April • Facing It • Yusef Komunyakaa

  On 30 April 1975, Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, was captured by Northern Vietnamese forces. This event, known as the Fall of Saigon, marked the defeat of South Vietnam and the US forces which supported them, and ended the Vietnam War – a conflict which had raged for nearly twenty years and resulted in the deaths of approximately four million people. This poem is set inside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which honours the American soldiers who lost their lives in the war.

  My black face fades,

  hiding inside the black granite.

  I said I wouldn’t,

  dammit: No tears.

  I’m stone. I’m flesh.

  My clouded reflection eyes me

  like a bird of prey, the profile of night

  slanted against morning. I turn

  this way – the stone lets me go.

  I turn that way – I’m inside

  the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

  again, depending on the light

  to make a difference.

  I go down the 58,022 names,

  half-expecting to find

  my own in letters like smoke.

  I touch the name Andrew Johnson;

  I see the booby trap’s white flash.

  Names shimmer on a woman’s blouse

  but when she walks away

  the names stay on the wall.

  Brushstrokes flash, a red bird’s

  wings cutting across my stare.

  The sky. A plane in the sky.

  A white vet’s image floats

  closer to me, then his pale eyes

  look through mine. I’m a window.