Happy Easter

As a precursor to National Poetry Month (USA) which takes place in April 2016, I thought I’d share with you some of my favourite seasonal poems to get you in the mood.

Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now 
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now 
Is hung with bloom along the bough, 
And stands about the woodland ride 
Wearing white for Eastertide. 

Now, of my threescore years and ten, 
Twenty will not come again, 
And take from seventy springs a score, 
It only leaves me fifty more. 

And since to look at things in bloom 
Fifty springs are little room, 
About the woodlands I will go 
To see the cherry hung with snow. 
A.E. Housman

Spring Rain
I thought I had forgotten, 
But it all came back again 
To-night with the first spring thunder 
In a rush of rain.

I remembered a darkened doorway 
Where we stood while the storm swept by, 
Thunder gripping the earth 
And lightning scrawled on the sky.

The passing motor busses swayed, 
For the street was a river of rain, 
Lashed into little golden waves 
In the lamp light's stain.

With the wild spring rain and thunder 
My heart was wild and gay; 
Your eyes said more to me that night 
Than your lips would ever say. . . .
I thought I had forgotten, 

But it all came back again 
To-night with the first spring thunder 
In a rush of rain. 
Sara Teasdale


And of course

Daffodils
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils. 

William Wordsworth