Equinox
The spring equinox here in the northern hemisphere will be about six hours from now. Here’s my traditional spring quotation of Swinburne:
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 recently read the entirety of that poem for the first time (after many years of loving and quoting the above bit), and learned that there’s a lot more that’s distressing in it than I had previously thought. Most of the poem is in no way a celebration of spring. But I do still love the abovequoted bit.
In the past, I’ve also included various other bits of spring poetry, but not gonna manage that today.
