{"id":6698,"date":"2018-04-03T08:09:21","date_gmt":"2018-04-03T08:09:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=6698"},"modified":"2026-04-18T19:34:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T19:34:32","slug":"another-spring-poem-elusive-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2018\/04\/another-spring-poem-elusive-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Another spring: poem for an elusive season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yesterday the sun shone, today another bitterly cold wind blows in from the east. Is it foolish to seek hope of spring in poetry? There\u2019s a kind of answer in the Scottish Poetry Library.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christina Rossetti\u2019s Good Friday<\/a> was the Scottish Poetry Library \u2018poem of the moment\u2019 before Easter but it\u2019s her Another Spring<\/a> that captures today\u2019s mood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

If I might see another Spring,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d laugh to-day, to-day is brief;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would not wait for anything:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A sad-sweet longing mixed with remorse at wasted time. That fits well with the frustration I feel both with the weather, stuck in seemingly endless winter, and the suspended animation of today\u2019s politics stuck somewhere between nightmares of catastrophe and dreams of utopia.  Politics, that tiresome word! The opiate of our time should not be mentioned in the same breath as poetry. Yet, look a little closer and Christina Rossetti\u2019s poetry is no simple escape from the reality of Victorian Britain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frosty wind made moan<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Winter hangs heavy over Christina Rossetti, a December child. She was born 5 December 1830 and died 29 December 1894 after six decades of global upheaval which formed the world we live in today. Interesting to rediscover that she also wrote the Christmas carol, In the Bleak Midwinter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Frosty wind made moan;
\nEarth stood hard as iron,
\nWater like a stone;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Religion and nature are recurring themes in her work (as illustrated in SPL\u2019s two examples ) but the extraordinary life outlined on the Poetry Foundation website shows why this very Victorian woman is also a feminist icon. Christina Rossetti<\/a> \u2013 daughter of the poet Gabriele Rossetti, sister of Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti \u2013 is by no means defined by the males of her family. Unsuccessful in applying to join Florence Nightingale\u2019s nurses in the Crimea, she worked as a volunteer among prostitutes in the Highgate Penitentiary<\/a> for \u2018fallen women\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Redemption, sexuality and desire are the suggestive stuff of her best-known poem, Goblin Market<\/a>, with critics feasting on different, often conflicting, interpretations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Morning and evening<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maids hear the goblins cry:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Come buy our orchard fruits<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Come buy, come buy<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Cover of Goblin Market and Other Poems: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Public Domain Wikimedia <\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Hidden life<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

From apparently happy childhood to womanhood without marriage or lasting partnership (the \u2018mateless nightingale\u2019 perhaps of Another Spring). Bouts of depression interwoven with increasingly fragile physical health \u2013 it\u2019s a brief glimpse of a complex life during another time of social and political turmoil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is April the cruellest month? Like TS Eliot in the Wasteland<\/a>, \u2018breeding Lilacs out of the dead land\u2019, Rossetti sees the bursting of hidden life \u2018nursed in its grave by Death\u2019. The hymn-like last verse of Spring<\/a> ends with Spring passing by, \u2018Now newly born and now\/Hastening to die.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No graves, however, in Another Spring just lingering regrets of a life not fully lived. In that case there\u2019s no time to be wasted. What if, what if\u2026 if\/when winter finally lets go, we should be wholeheartedly glad, and hear ‘music in the hail’ today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Another Spring<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If I might see another Spring<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d not plant flowers and wait:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d have my crocuses at once,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My leafless pink mezereons,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My chill-veined snow-drops, choice yet<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My white or azure violet,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaf-nested primrose; anything<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To blow at once, not late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I might see another Spring<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d listen to the daylight birds<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That build their nests and pair and sing,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor wait for mateless nightingale;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d listen to the lusty herds<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ewes with lambs as white as snow,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d find out music in the hail<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And all the winds that blow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I might see another Spring \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh stinging comment on my past<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That all my past results in \u201cif\u201d \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I might see another Spring,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d laugh to-day, to-day is brief;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would not wait for anything:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d use to-day that cannot last,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be glad to-day and sing.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Featured image: Better days to come? Wild garlic in unfurling beech wood, by Fay Young.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is winter never going to end? Seeking hope in poetry, Fay Young finds a kind of answer in Christina Rossetti’s poem Another Spring, whose sad-sweet longing seems to capture the mood of the moment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":6701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[135,245],"class_list":["post-6698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-scottish-poetry-library","tag-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6698"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18851,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6698\/revisions\/18851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}