A Defence Of English Spring poem – Alfred Austin

Unnamed, unknown, but surely bred

Where Thames, once silver, now runs lead,

Whose journeys daily ebb and flow

‘Twixt Tyburn and the bells of Bow,

You late in learnëd prose have told

How, for the happy bards of old,

Spring burst upon Sicilian seas,

Or blossomed in the Cyclades,

But never yet hath deigned to smile

On poets of this shivering isle,

Who, when to vernal strains they melt,

Discourse of joys they never felt,

And, pilfering from each other’s page,

Pass on the lie from age to age.

Well, now in turn give ear to me,

Who, with your leave, friend, claim to be,

Degenerate, but withal allied,

At least on mother Nature’s side,

To Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, all,

Foremost or hindmost, great or small,

My kindred, and whose numbers ring

With woodnotes of the English Spring:

Leave for awhile your polished town,

Unto my rural home come down,

Where you shall find such bed and board

As rude bucolic roofs afford,

And judge, with your own ear and eye,

If Spring exists, or poets lie.

Welcome! Now plunge at once with me

Into the nearest copse you see.

The boles are brown, the branches gray,

Yet green buds live on every spray.

But ’tis the ground most wins your gaze,

And makes you question, with amaze,

What these are! Shells flung far and wide

By Winter’s now fast-ebbing tide,

In language called, for him who sees

But grossly, wood-anemones.

Those, too? Nay, pluck not. You will find

That they maintain a silent mind.

You do not understand? I meant

They will not talk to you in scent.

Sweet violets you know; but these

Have their own rustic way to please.

Their charm is in their look, their free

Unfrightened gaze of gaiety.

Are they not everywhere? Their eyes

Glance up to the cerulean skies,

And challenge them to match the glow

Of their own bluer heaven below.

Anon the trunks and boughs fall back,

And along winding track on track,

Lo! wheresoe’er you onward press,

Shine milky ways of primroses;

So thick, there are, when these have birth,

Far fewer stars in heaven than earth.

You know them, for their face one meets

Still smiling in your London streets;

And one I loved, but who with Fame

Sleeps quiet now, hath made their name,

Even for those, alas! who share

No fellowship with woodlands fair,

Wherever English speech is heard,

A meaning sound, a grateful word.

Yet unto me they seem, when there,

Like young things that should be elsewhere,

In lanes, in dells, in rustic air.

But looked on here, where they have space

To peep from every sheltered place,

Their simple, open faces seem-

Or doth again a poet dream?-

The wondering soul of child-like Spring,

Inquisitive of everything.

Now frowns the sky, the air bites bleak,

The young boughs rock, the old trunks creak,

And fast before the following gale

Come slanting drops, then slashing hail,

As keen as sword, as thick as shot.

Nay, do not cower, but heed them not!

For these one neither flies nor stirs;

They are but April skirmishers,

Thrown out to cover the advance

Of gleaming spear and glittering lance,

With which the sunshine scours amain

Heaven, earth, and air, and routs the rain.

See how the sparkling branches sway,

And, laughing, shake the drops away,

While, glimmering through, the meads beyond

Are emerald and diamond.

And hark! behind baptismal shower,

Whose drops, new-poured on leaf and flower,

Unto their infant faces cling,

The cuckoo, sponsor of the Spring,

Breaks in, and strives, with loud acclaim,

To christen it with his own name.

Now he begins, he will not cease,

Nor leave the woodlands any peace,

That have to listen all day long

To him reciting his one song.

And oft you may, when all is still,

And night lies smooth on vale and hill,

Hear him call “Cuckoo!” in his dream,

Still haunted by the egoist theme.

Out of the wood now, and we gain,

The freedom of the winding lane:

Push through the open gap, and leap;

What! have you tumbled all aheap?

Only a scratch. See! ditch and bank

With the same flowers are lush and rank,

With more beside. As yet but single,

The bluebells with the grasses mingle;

But soon their azure will be scrolled

Upon the primrose cloth-of-gold.

Yes, those are early ladysmocks,

The children crumple in their frocks,

And carry many a zigzag mile,

O’er meadow, footpath, gate, and stile,

To stick in pots and jugs to dress

Their cottage sills and lattices.

As yet they only fleck the grass;

But again hither shortly pass,

And with them knolls that now are bare

Will be a blaze of lavender.

What lends yon dingle such a sheen?

How! Buttercups? No, celandine.

Complete in its own self, each one

A looking-glass is for the sun,

Soon as his waking hours begin,

To see his own effulgence in.

Crave you for brighter still, behold

Yon clusters of marsh-marigold.

This is our rustic wealth, and found

Not under, but above the ground;

Mines that bring wealth without its sting,

Enrich without impoverishing.

Yes, Cuckoo! cuckoo! cuckoo, still!

Do you not feel an impulse thrill

Your vernal blood to do the same,

And, boylike, shout him back his name?

But though he loudest, longest sings,

Music is shook from myriad wings.

Hear you the lark advancing now,

Through seas of air, with rippling prow?

They say that from the poet’s tears

Spring sweetest songs for unseen ears;

And, from its moist and lowly bed,

The lark mounts up aloft to shed,

In heavenly fields beyond our view,

Music still drenched with earthly dew.

The robin, that in winter cheers

With his lone voice our lonelier ears,

Though warbling still on neighbouring bough,

Sings all unheard, unnoticed now.

Chatter the jays, the starlings flute,

There’s not a single throat that’s mute.

From tree to tree the finches flit,

Nor once their carols intermit.

The willow-warbler mounts, then drops,

And in his silvery solo stops

Just as it bubbles to the brim,

To hark if any answer him.

High on a bare conspicuous spray,

That none may doubt who chants the lay,

Proud of his undisputed skill

To breast whatever note he will,

The thrush runs revelling all along

The spacious gamut of his song;

Varies, inverts, repeats the strain,

Then sings it different again.

The blackbird, less expert than he,

Coaxes and scolds alternately;

Then, with a sudden scream and rush,

Is off into another bush,

Feigning to fear for life and limb,

Though none have interfered with him.

But listen! ne’er on urban bough

Was perched the note you caught just now.

Hush! move a little down the lane;

When we have passed, he’ll start again.

There! Did you ever hear a strain

Of such apotheosized pain,

Such sadness almost sung to bliss,

Blending of woe and joy like this?

Yes, he descants all day, despite

The name he borrows from the night.

Though then perchance the wails increase,

When doth true anguish ever cease?

He is the poet-bird that sings

Through joy, through sorrow, through all things.

‘Tis only we that do not hark

Until our own bright days grow dark.

Now, think you that I gleaned all this,

This mite of wisdom, wealth of bliss,

In dusty shelf and yellowing tome?

Is it not rather that I roam,

From dawn to noon, from noon till eve,

Ready to gladden or to grieve

With every aspect, impulse, mood,

Of Nature’s active solitude?

Ah! if you knew the hours on hours

One lives with birds, one spends with flowers;

How many a time one’s eyes grow wet

By gazing on the violet;

How often all one has to show

For days that come, and days that go,

Are woodland nosegays all ablow;

You then, I think, would scarcely deem

One’s songs of Spring a borrowed theme,

But own that English poets learn,

In every hour, at every turn,

From Nature’s page, from Nature’s speech,

What neither book nor bard can teach.

Nor deem this pride. I am to her

A student and interpreter,

Loving to read what lessons lurk

In her unlettered handiwork,

To find the helpful meanings writ

In waves that break, in clouds that flit,

Some balm extract for weeping eyes

From rain that falls, from dew that dries;

Infer from her uncertain text

A hopeful creed for souls perplexed,

To them her busy calm impart,

And harmonise the human heart.

Halt we a little here, and gaze.

Gambol the lambs, their mothers graze,

While cloudland shadows o’er the grass

In noiseless billows break and pass.

Beholding these, would you not say

The world was born but yesterday?

And while the years such scenes unfold

Afresh, it never can grow old.

Yon yeanlings, by their dam’s warm fleece,

Fixed image of ephemeral peace,

How cunningly and snug they cower

From driving gust and drenching shower.

One symbol more, for me at least,

Who, let the world blow north or east,

By mother Nature once reclined,

Am sheltered from each bitter wind.

Yet deeper lessons may we read

In this unacademic mead:

The wisdom of untutored sense,

Sagacity of reverence.

See! the lambs kneel, that they may drain

From life’s sweet source a deeper strain.

And if from Nature’s lavish breast

We would imbibe the fullest, best,

All that she is so prompt to give,

That we may learn, that we may live,

Howe’er you proud town-sceptics view it,

We too must bend our knees to do it.

Confess this is not bookish lore;

‘Tis feeling only, and no more.

Poets lack what you learning call,

And rustic poets, most of all.

Why from the plain truth should I shrink?

In woods men feel; in towns they think.

Yet, which is best? Thought, stumbling, plods

Past fallen temples, vanished gods,

Altars unincensed, fanes undecked,

Eternal systems flown or wrecked;

Through trackless centuries that grant

To the poor trudge refreshment scant,

Age after age, pants on to find

A melting mirage of the mind.

But feeling never wanders far,

Content to fare with things that are,

The same old track, the same loved face,

Familiar genius of the place;

From nature’s simples to distil

Homely receipt for homely ill;

And finds, betwixt the sky and ground,

The sunshine of its daily round.

So swallows, though awhile they range

In quest of joy, in chase of change,

Once tenderer instincts flood their breast,

And twittering voices brim the nest,

Grown far too wise and well to roam,

Keep circling round the roof of home.

Now understand you, friend, why here

I linger passive all the year,

And let old thoughts and feelings gain

Their growth, like lichen, on my brain?-

Why the loud gusts of blame and praise,

That blow about your London ways,

To me are but as wind that shrills

About my orchard daffodils,

Only to make them shake their scent

Unto a wider continent!

But ere you go, if go you must,

Take this from me, at least, on trust.

In that fair tract ‘twixt hill and main,

I sang of in my earliest strain,

Where fades not flower, nor falls the leaf,

And Godfrid brought Olympia grief,

Oft have I heard, as Spring comes round,

The snow-fed streams begin to sound;

Oft have I seen the almonds bloom

Round Dante’s cradle, Petrarch’s tomb;

Been there when banksia roses fall

In cataracts over Tuscan wall;

Oft watched Rome’s dead Campagna break

To asphodels for April’s sake;

Smelt the green myrtle browsed and left

By clambering goats in Ischian cleft;

Gathered the cistus-blooms that lay,

Like flecks of fresh unmelted spray,

Round Paleocastrizza’s bay;

Drunk of the nectar wafted o’er

The wave from Zante’s perfumed shore;

Plucked Delphi’s flowering bays that twine

No garlands now for brows divine;

Stretched me on Acro-Corinth’s brow,

Just when the year was young as now;

Have half-way up Hymettus heard

In Attic grove the Attic bird;

Sailed past the crimson Judas-trees

That flame o’er Stamboul’s narrow seas,

And marked the cuckoo, from the shore,

Bid wintry Danube thaw once more.

But none of these, nor all, can match,

At least for him who loves to watch

The wild-flowers come, hear wild birds sing,

The rapture of an English Spring.

With us it loiters more than where

It comes, it goes, half unaware;

Makes winter short, makes summer long,

In autumn half renews its song,

Nor even then doth hence depart,

But hybernates within my heart.