Poems
Coming Spring
In all the years which have been,
The spring hath green’d the bough —
The gladsome hopeful spring-time! —
Keep heart! It comes even now.
The winter-time departeth;
The early flowers expand;
The blackbird and the turtle-dove
Are heard throughout the land.
The sadness of the winter,
Which gloom’d our hearts, is gone:
A thousand signs betoken
That spring-time comes anon.
‘Tis spring-time in our bosoms;
All strife aside we cast;
The storms were for the winter-days,
But they are gone and past.
Before us lies the spring-time—
Thank God, the time of mirth —
When birds are singing in the trees,
And flowers gem all the earth;
When a thousand busy hands upturn
The bounteous, fruitful mould,
And the heart of every poet feels
More love than it can hold.
In all the years which have been,
The spring-time green’d the bough—
The gentle, gracious spring-time!
Rejoice! it comes even now.
The spring hath green’d the bough —
The gladsome hopeful spring-time! —
Keep heart! It comes even now.
The winter-time departeth;
The early flowers expand;
The blackbird and the turtle-dove
Are heard throughout the land.
The sadness of the winter,
Which gloom’d our hearts, is gone:
A thousand signs betoken
That spring-time comes anon.
‘Tis spring-time in our bosoms;
All strife aside we cast;
The storms were for the winter-days,
But they are gone and past.
Before us lies the spring-time—
Thank God, the time of mirth —
When birds are singing in the trees,
And flowers gem all the earth;
When a thousand busy hands upturn
The bounteous, fruitful mould,
And the heart of every poet feels
More love than it can hold.
In all the years which have been,
The spring-time green’d the bough—
The gentle, gracious spring-time!
Rejoice! it comes even now.
Analysis (ai): The poem uses a simple ABCB rhyme scheme in quatrains with a regular iambic rhythm, typical of 19th-century devotional and didactic verse, creating a hymn-like cadence that emphasizes reassurance.
- Tone and Language: Archaic contractions like “hath” and “anon” lend a solemn, timeless quality, distancing the speaker from immediate experience and aligning the poem with religious or moral instruction common in Victorian poetry.
- Seasonal Symbolism: Spring functions not only as a natural cycle but as a metaphor for emotional and spiritual renewal, a motif recurring throughout the author’s work, especially in her moral and religious-themed poems.
- Emotional Movement: The shift from winter’s sadness to spring’s mirth mirrors an internal transformation, suggesting that emotional hardship is temporary and cyclical, much like nature—an idea consistent with Victorian optimism rooted in faith.
- Repetition and Reassurance: The repeated declaration “it comes even now” at beginning and end frames the poem as an incantatory affirmation, reinforcing endurance and patience, similar to other poems by the author that emphasize quiet resilience.
- Religious Undercurrent: The invocation “Thank God” is not incidental; it anchors the optimism in divine order, a hallmark of her writing, where natural phenomena often reflect moral or spiritual truths.
- Connection to Other Works: Compared to her more narrative or socially conscious poems, this one is stripped of specificity, functioning as a meditative piece, closer in tone to her devotional writings than to her ballads or children’s literature.
- Historical Context: While many of her contemporaries used seasonal change to explore doubt or industrial decline, this poem avoids skepticism, instead upholding a belief in natural and divine constancy.
- Reader Engagement: The direct address—“Keep heart!”—creates intimacy, drawing the reader into a shared emotional journey, a technique she often employed to instruct or console, especially in works aimed at domestic audiences.
- Less-Discussed Angle: Rather than simply celebrating renewal, the poem quietly enforces emotional discipline, urging the casting aside of “strife” as if inner peace requires deliberate effort, not just passive waiting.
Mary Howitt
(1799 – 1888)
Mary Howitt
(12 March 1799 – 30 January 1888) was an English writer, editor, translator and a pioneer of the women’s rights movement in the UK. She is most known as the author of the famous poem The Spider and the Fly. She translated several works by Hans Christian Andersen and Frederika Bremer. Some of her works were written in conjunction with her husband, William Howitt. Many, in verse and prose, were intended for young people.
