Lorem Ipsum

A couple of weeks ago, I was thinking "The spring equinox is coming up, but I'm sure not feeling very celebratory. Wonder what I should post."

But my mood has sprung forward since then, most likely due primarily to changes in the weather (really it's pretty much been summer here the past couple days), and so I am pleased at the arrival of the northern hemisphere's vernal equinox, which is happening minutes from now as I type this.

Although I am sorry to hear that in some parts of the country, winter's snows aren't even over, much less winter's rains. Sympathies. Also sympathies to those of y'all whose winter's rains ended up in your basements; that sounded awful.

But I'm nonetheless gonna proceed with my usual quote:

For winter's rains and ruins are over,

And all the season of snows and sins;

The days dividing lover and lover,

The light that loses, the night that wins;

And time remember'd is grief forgotten,

And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,

And in green underwood and cover

Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

—Algernon Charles Swinburne, from "Atalanta in Calydon" (1865)

I may as well post a couple of the other verses from last year again as well.

Such as this one:

Though a country be sundered, hills and rivers endure;

And spring comes green again to trees and grasses

Where petals have been shed like tears

And lonely birds have sung their grief.

—Tu Fu, from "A Spring View" (c. 750), trans. Witter Bynner

And this:

now, the flowers are fresh and plentiful

time to wash windows, strip off winter's forgetfulness,

come to terms and to some kind of truce

--Margaret James, from "March 18" (2007)

As always, for more spring versifying, see my 2002 equinox entry (featuring Horace/Housman and a link to Eliot) and Twig's 2008 equinox entry (featuring Mahler and Roethke).