Poetry & Analysis
Selected Poems
Inspirational PoemsThe First Spring Day
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:
Sing, robin, sing;
I still am sore in doubt concerning Spring.
I wonder if the springtide of this year
Will bring another Spring both lost and dear;
If heart and spirit will find out their Spring,
Or if the world alone will bud and sing:
Sing, hope, to me;
Sweet notes, my hope, soft notes for memory.
The sap will surely quicken soon or late,
The tardiest bird will twitter to a mate;
So Spring must dawn again with warmth and bloom,
Or in this world, or in the world to come:
Sing, voice of Spring,
Till I too blossom and rejoice and sing.
Rossetti watches for the first signs of spring while wondering whether the heart can renew as nature renews. The poem ends with hope that inner spring will come.
This poem is especially strong for readers searching for poems about new beginnings after loss because it admits doubt while still choosing hope.
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A Better Resurrection
My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall—the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.
My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perished thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.
My life is like a broken harp,
Whereon to wasted air
A sound is dimly echoed,
And no melody is there;
Tune, tune the broken chords again,
And make them answer Thee,
As harpstrings answer to the touch,
O Jesus, sing to me.
Rossetti compares the self to a faded leaf, broken bowl, and broken harp. The poem asks for spiritual renewal, remaking, and a better life.
The tone is humble, prayerful, and hopeful. It turns weakness into the beginning of restoration.
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Loveliest of Trees
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.
Housman sees cherry trees in bloom and realizes life is limited. The poem turns spring into a reminder to live attentively now.
The poem teaches that a new beginning is not only about changing life; sometimes it is about noticing life before it passes.
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The Garden Year
January brings the snow,
Makes our feet and fingers glow.
February brings the rain,
Thaws the frozen lake again.
March brings breezes loud and shrill,
Stirs the dancing daffodil.
April brings the primrose sweet,
Scatters daisies at our feet.
May brings flocks of pretty lambs,
Skipping by their fleecy dams.
June brings tulips, lilies, roses,
Fills the children’s hands with posies.
Hot July brings cooling showers,
Apricots, and gillyflowers.
August brings the sheaves of corn,
Then the harvest home is borne.
Warm September brings the fruit;
Sportsmen then begin to shoot.
Fresh October brings the pheasant;
Then to gather nuts is pleasant.
Dull November brings the blast;
Then the leaves are whirling fast.
Chill December brings the sleet,
Blazing fire, and Christmas treat.
Sara Coleridge moves month by month through the year, showing that change is natural, orderly, and full of small beginnings.
This poem is especially useful for students and kids because it presents renewal as a year-long cycle rather than a single moment.
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Opportunity
This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:—
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain;
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged
A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords
Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince’s banner
Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.
A craven hung along the battle’s edge,
And thought, “Had I a sword of keener steel—
That blue blade that the king’s son bears,—but this
Blunt thing—!” he snapt and flung it from his hand,
And lowering crept away and left the field.
Then came the king’s son, wounded, sore bestead,
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,
Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,
And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout
Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down,
And saved a great cause that heroic day.
Sill shows two people facing the same broken sword. One sees uselessness and quits; another sees possibility and wins with it.
This poem fits the fresh-start theme because it shows that a new chapter can begin with what looks broken, ordinary, or already lost.
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