Spring by Christina Georgina Rossetti
Seeds and roots locked by winter send up shoots as thawing wind, rain, and sun bring grass, leaves, ferns, and pairing birds. The speaker celebrates spring, names God as the swallows’ guide and provider, and reflects that the season’s newborn life hastens toward death.
By Christina Georgina Rossetti · Genre: Nature Poetry, Lyric Poetry, Meditative Poetry · 367 words
First lines
Frost-locked all the winter, / Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits, / What shall make their sap ascend / That they may put forth shoots? / Tips of tender green, / Leaf, or blade, or sheath; / Telling of the hidden life / That breaks forth underneath, / Life nursed in its grave by Death.
Blows the thaw-wind pleasantly, / Drips the soaking rain, / By fits looks down the waking sun: / Young grass springs on the plain; / Young leaves clothe early hedgerow trees; / Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits, / Swollen with sap, put forth their shoots; / Curled-headed ferns sprout in the lane; / Birds sing and pair again.
Genres
- Nature Poetry — The stanzas follow seeds, roots, grass, leaves, ferns, and birds as winter gives way to thaw and growth.
- Lyric Poetry — Rhymed stanzas and the repeated declaration that no time equals spring express the speaker’s response to the season.
- Meditative Poetry — The closing stanza considers spring’s passing and the mortality of the life newly emerging from soil and nests.
Tags
seasonal renewal · thaw · plant growth · birds · divine providence · mortality
What this Textopian page supports
Spring is listed on Textopian as a poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Nature Poetry, Lyric Poetry, Meditative Poetry
- Length: 367 words
- Structure: 1 section, 4 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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- Work identity for Spring by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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