Contents
-BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Spring
Come, gentle Spring; ethereal Mildness, come!
Thomson.
The boyhood of the year.
Tennyson.
Winter, lingering, chills the lap of May.
Goldsmith.
The first pale blossom of the unripened year.
Mrs. Barbauld.
Where smiling Spring its earliest visit paid.
Goldsmith.
Fair-handed Spring unbosoms every grace.
Thomson.
He wakes into music the green forest-bowers.
W. G. Clark.
It is a natural resurrection, an experience of immortality.
Thoreau.
The holy spirit of the SpringIs working silently.
George MacDonald.
Sweet daughter of a rough and stormy sire, hoar Winter’s blooming child, delightful Spring.
Mrs. Barbauld.
The beauteous eyes of the spring’s fair nightWith comfort are downward gazing.
Heine.
When Spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil.
Bishop Heber.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.
Shakespeare.
When well-apparelled April on the heel of limping winter treads.
Shakespeare.
Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees.
Cowper.
In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
Tennyson.
Fled now the sullen murmurs of the North,The splendid raiment of the Spring peeps forth.
Bloomfield.
When every brake hath found its note, and sunshine smiles in every flower.
Edward Everett.
Winking Maybuds begin to ope their golden eyes.
Shakespeare.
Still sweet with blossoms is the year’s fresh prime.
Bryant.
Let us fill urns with rose-leaves in our May, and hive the thrifty sweetness for December!
Bulwer-Lytton.
Fresh as the lovely form of youthful May, when nymphs and graces in the dance unite.
Wieland.
O fresh-lit dawn! immortal life!O Earth’s betrothal, sweet and true!
E. C. Stedman.
Airs, vernal airs, breathing the smell of fields and grove, attune the trembling leaves.
Milton.
The spring, the summer, the chilling autumn, angry winter, change their wonted liveries.
Shakespeare.
’T is a month before the month of May, and the spring comes slowly up this way.
Coleridge.
There is no time like spring, that passes by, now newly born, and now hastening to die.
Christina G. Rossetti.
The peach-bud glows, the wild bee hums, and wind-flowers wave in graceful gladness.
Lucy Larcom.
Sweet Spring! full of sweet days and roses; a box where sweets compacted lie.
George Herbert.
Came the Spring with all its splendor,All its birds and all its blossoms,All its flowers, and leaves, and grasses.
Longfellow.
Spring flies, and with it all the train it leads;And flowers, in fading, leave us but their seeds.
Schiller.
Fair-handed Spring unbosoms every grace:Throws out the snowdrop and the crocus first.
Thompson.
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn? O, when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?
Beattie.
Spring, the Raphael of the northern earth, stood already out of doors, and covered all apartments of our Vatican with his pictures.
Richter.
Most gladly would I give the blood-stained laurel for the first violet which March brings us, the fragrant pledge of the new-fledged year.
Schiller.
Stately Spring! whose robe-folds are valleys, whose breast-bouquet is gardens, and whose blush is a vernal evening.
Richter.
Ye may trace my step o’er the wakening earth by the winds which tell of the violet’s birth.
Mrs. Hemans.
Thus came the lovely spring, with a rush of blossoms and music, flooding the earth with flowers and the air with melodies vernal.
Longfellow.
Ah, how wonderful is the advent of the spring,—the great annual miracle of the blossoming of Aaron’s rod, repeated on myriads and myriads of branches!
Longfellow.
I wonder if the sap is stirring yet,If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate,If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun,And crocus fires are kindling one by one.
Christina G. Rossetti.
Gentle Spring!—in sunshine clad,Well dost thou thy power display!For Winter maketh the light heart sad,And thou,—thou makest the sad heart gay.
Charles D’Orleans.
The lovely town was white with apple-blooms,And the great elms o’erheadDark shadows wove on their ærial looms,Shot through with golden thread.
Longfellow.
All flowers of Spring are not May’s own;The crocus cannot often kiss her;The snow-drop, ere she comes, has flown—The earliest violets always miss her.
Lucy Larcom.
Sweet Spring, full of sweet dayes and roses,A box where sweets compacted lie,My musick shows ye have your closes,And all must die.
Herbert.
The spring’s already at the gateWith looks my care beguiling;The country round appeareth straightA flower-garden smiling.
Heine.
It is the season now to goAbout the country high and low,Among the lilacs hand in hand,And two by two in fairyland.
Robt. Louis Stevenson.
For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
Bible.
The breath of springtime at this twilight hourComes through the gathering glooms,And bears the stolen sweets of many a flowerInto my silent rooms.
William Cullen Bryant.
When daisies pied, and violets blue,And lady-smocks all silver-white,And cuckoo-buds of yellow hueDo paint the meadows with delight.
Shakespeare.
Dip down upon the northern shore,O sweet new year, delaying long;Thou doest expectant nature wrong,Delaying long; delay no more.
Tennyson.
Showers and sunshine bring,Slowly, the deepening verdure o’er the earth;To put their foliage out, the woods are slack,And one by one the ringing-birds come back.
William Cullen Bryant.
Winter is past; the heart of Nature warmsBeneath the wrecks of unresisted storms;Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen,The southern slopes are fringed with tender green.
Oliver Wendell Holmes.
In that soft season, when descending show’rsCall forth the greens, and wake the rising flow’rs;When opening buds salute the welcome day,And earth relenting feels the genial ray.
Pope.
Sweet is the air with the budding haws, and the valley stretching for miles belowIs white with blossoming cherry-trees, as if just covered with lightest snow.
Longfellow.
Mighty nature bounds as from her birth.The sun is in the heavens, and life on earth:Flowers in the valley, splendor in the beam,Health on the gale, and freshness in the stream.
Byron.
Bright April showers will bid again the fresh green leaves expand; and May, light floating in a cloud of flowers, will cause thee to rebloom with magic hand.
G. H. Lewes.
What child has a heart to sing in this capricious clime of ours, when spring comes sailing in from the sea, with wet and heavy cloud-sails and the misty pennon of the east-wind nailed to the mast.
Longfellow.
Eternal Spring, with smiling Verdure hereWarms the mild Air, and crowns the youthful Year.*****
The Rose still blushes, and the vi’lets blow. Sir Sam’l Garth.
There is no time like Spring,When life’s alive in everything,Before new nestlings sing,Before cleft swallows speed their journey backAlong the trackless track.
Christina G. Rossetti.
The Spring is here—the delicate footed May,With its slight fingers full of leaves and flowers,And with it comes a thirst to be away,In lovelier scenes to pass these sweeter hours.
N. P. Willis.
The clouds consign their treasures to the fields,And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool,Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flowIn large effusion, o’er the freshen’d world.
Thomson.
Daughter of heaven and earth, coy Spring,With sudden passion languishing,Teaching barren moors to smile,Painting pictures mile on mile,Holds a cup of cowslip wreathsWhence a smokeless incense breathes.
Emerson.
Once more the heavenly powerMakes all things new,And domes the red-plough’d hillsWith loving blue;The blackbirds have their wills,The throstles too.
Tennyson.
’Tis spring-time on the eastern hills!Like torrents gush the summer rills;Through winter’s moss and dry dead leavesThe bladed grass revives and lives,Pushes the mouldering waste away,And glimpses to the April day.
Whittier.
What delights us in the spring is more a sensation than an appearance, more a hope than any visible reality. There is something in the softness of the air, in the lengthening of the days, in the very sounds and odors of the sweet time, that caresses us and consoles us after the rigorous weeks of winter.
Hamerton.
When the measured dance of the hours brings back the happy smile of spring, the buried dead is born again in the life-glance of the sun. The germs which perished to the eye within the cold breast of the earth spring up with joy in the bright realm of day.
Schiller.
Spring is a beautiful piece of work; and not to be in the country to see it done is the not realizing what glorious masters we are, and how cheerfully, minutely, and unflaggingly the fair fingers of the season broider the world for us.
Willis.
At last from Aries rolls the bounteous sun,And the bright Bull receives him. Then no moreTh’ expansive atmosphere is cramp’d with cold;But, full of life and vivifying soul,Lifts the light clouds sublime, and spreads them thin,Fleecy and white, o’er all surrounding heaven.
Thomson.
So then the year is repeating its old story again. We are come once more, thank God! to its most charming chapter. The violets and the Mayflowers are as its inscriptions or vignettes. It always makes a pleasant impression on us, when we open again at these pages of the book of life.
Goethe.
I come, I come! ye have called me long,I come o’er the mountain with light and song:Ye may trace my step o’er the wakening earth,By the winds which tell of the violet’s birth,By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass,By the green leaves, opening as I pass.
Mrs. Hemans.
And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of spring,And the rosebud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,And the crocus bed is a quivering moon of fireGirdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.
Oscar Wilde.
It is not the variegated colors, the cheerful sounds, and the warm breezes which enliven us so much in spring; it is the quiet prophetic spirit of endless hope, a presentiment of many happy days, the anticipation of higher everlasting blossoms and fruits, and the secret sympathy with the world that is developing itself.
Martin Opitz.
Alas! bright Spring! not longShall I enjoy thy pleasant influence:For thou shalt die the summer heat among,Sublimed to vapor in his fire intense,And, gone forever hence,Exist no more; no more to earth belong,Except in song.
Albert Pike.
The bee buzz’d up in the heat,“I am faint for your honey, my sweet.”The flower said, “Take it, my dear,For now is the Spring of the year,So come, come!”“Hum!”And the bee buzz’d down from the heat.
Tennyson.
O tender time that love thinks long to see,Sweet foot of Spring that with her foot-fall sowsLate snow-like flowery leavings of the snows,Be not too long irresolute to be;O mother-month, where have they hidden thee?
Swinburne.
And softly came the fair young queenO’er mountain, dale, and dell;And where her golden light was seenAn emerald shadow fell.The good-wife oped the window wide,The good-man spanned his plough;’Tis time to run, ’tis time to ride,For Spring is with us now.
Leland.
See where surly Winter passes off,Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts:His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill,The shattered forest and the ravished vale;While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch,Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost,The mountains lift their green heads to the sky.
Thomson.
What change has made the pastures sweetAnd reached the daisies at my feet,And cloud that wears a golden hem?This lovely world, the hills, the sward—They all look fresh, as if our LordBut yesterday had finished them.
Jean Ingelow.
It is not merely the multiplicity of tints, the gladness of tone, or the balminess of the air which delight in the spring; it is the still consecrated spirit of hope, the prophecy of happy days yet to come; the endless variety of nature, with presentiments of eternal flowers which never shall fade, and sympathy with the blessedness of the ever-developing world.
Novalis.
Spring is strong and virtuous,Broad-sowing, cheerful, plenteous,Quickening underneath the mouldGrains beyond the price of gold.So deep and large her bounties are,That one broad, long midsummer dayShall to the planet overpayThe ravage of a year of war.
Emerson.
Hark! the hours are softly callingBidding Spring arise,To listen to the rain-drops fallingFrom the cloudy skies.To listen to Earth’s weary voices,Louder every day,Bidding her no longer lingerOn her charm’d way;But hasten to her task of beautyScarcely yet begun.
Adelaide A. Procter.
It was in the primeOf the sweet spring-time,In the linnet’s throatTrembled the love-note,And the love-stirred airThrilled the blossoms there.Little shadows danced,Each a tiny elf,Happy in large lightAnd the thinnest self.
George Eliot.
So forth issew’d the Seasons of the yeare:First, lusty Spring, all dight in leaves of flowresThat freshly budded and new bloomes did beare,In which a thousand birds had built their bowresThat sweetly sung to call forth paramours;And in his hand a javelin he did beare,And on his head (as fit for warlike stoures)A guilt, engraven morion he did weare:That, as some did him love, so others did him feare.
Spenser.
If spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change! But now the silent succession suggests nothing but necessity. To most men only the cessation of the miracle would be miraculous, and the perpetual exercise of God’s power seems less wonderful than its withdrawal would be.
Longfellow.
The trumpet winds have sounded a retreat,Blowing o’er land and sea a sullen strain;Usurping March, defeated, flies again,And lays his trophies at the Winter’s feet.And lo! where April, coming in his turn,In changeful motleys, half of light and shade,Leads his belated charge, a delicate maid,A nymph with dripping urn.
R. H. Stoddard.
The golden line is drawn between winter and summer. Behind all is blackness and darkness and dissolution. Before is hope, and soft airs, and the flowers, and the sweet season of hay; and people will cross the fields, reading or walking with one another; and instead of the rain that soaks death into the heart of green things, will be the rain which they drink with delight; and there will be sleep on the grass at midday, and early rising in the morning, and long moonlight evenings.
Leigh Hunt.
