[Tim Murphy]

David, I know that I shouldn't. But it was the first day of spring. And I thought an intentionally silly poem was appropriate. My email address is now timmurphyis@gmail.com. Please redirect your message.

[Gail White]

Well, I didn't know that about not posting one's own poems, and I just put a parody on another thread.
I will know better for the future.

[Gail White]

Here's a spring song from Shakespeare's day by Thomas Nashe. I find it hard to read this out loud without laughing:

Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king,
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,
In every street these tunes our ears do greet:
Cucko, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

[Jeff Holt]

In the spirit of spring, here is an "earthy" epithalamion (of sorts....) by cheery old TL Beddoes.

A Cypress-Bough, and A Rose-Wreath Sweet ( song )


Act IV, scene iii


A cypress-bough and a rose-wreath sweet,
A wedding robe, and a winding-sheet,
A bridal bed and a bier.
Thine be the kisses, maid,
And smiling Love's alarms;
And thou, pale youth, be laid
In the grave's cold arms.
Each in his own charms,
Death and Hymen both are here;
So up with scythe and torch,
And to the old church porch,
While all the bells ring clear:
And rosy, rosy the bed shall bloom,
And earthy, earthy heap up the tomb.

Now tremble dimples on your cheek,
Sweet be your lips to taste and speak,
For he who kisses is near:
For her the bride-groom fair,
In youthful power and force;
For him the grizard bare,
Pale knight on a pale horse,
To woo him to a corpse.
Death and Hymen both are here,
So up with scythe and torch,
And to the old church porch,
While all the bells ring clear:
And rosy, rosy the bed shall bloom,
And earthy, earthy heap up the tomb.





------------------
"If there are ghosts to raise,
What shall I call,
Out of hell's murky haze,
Heaven's blue hall?"
--Beddoes

[This message has been edited by Jeff Holt (edited March 23, 2007).]

[Gregory Dowling]

A few days early for this one, but the season is right:

A STORM IN APRIL

Some winters, taking leave,
Deal us a last, hard blow,
Salting the ground like Carthage
Before they will go.

But the bright, milling snow
Which throngs the air today -
It is a way of leaving
So as to stay.

The light flakes do not weigh
The willows down, but sift
Through the white catkins, loose
As petal-drift,

Or in an up-draft lift
And glitter at a height,
Dazzling as summer's leaf-stir
Chinked with light.

This storm, if I am right,
Will not be wholly over
Till green fields, here and there,
Turn white with clover,

And through chill air the puffs of milkweed hover.

RICHARD WILBUR

[David Landrum]

I like the Song of Songs spring exerpt:

Rise up, my love, my fair one
and come away.
For, lo, the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone;
the flowers appear on the earth,
the time of the singing birds is come,
and the voice of the turtle is
heard in our land;
the fig tree putteth forth her green figs,
and the vines with the tender grape
give a good smell.
Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away.

The turtle here is the turtle dove (as I kid I took it literally and did not think a tutle would sound particularly romantic).