Another Spring

 

 

John Wainwright

Another Spring

 

If I might see another Spring,
I’d not plant summer flowers and wait:
I’d have my crocuses at once,
My leafless pink mezereons,
My chill-veined snow-drops, choicer yet
My white or azure violet,
Leaf-nested primrose; anything
To blow at once, not late.

If I might see another Spring
I’d listen to the daylight birds
That build their nests and pair and sing,
Nor wait for mateless nightingale;
I’d listen to the lusty herds,
The ewes with lambs as white as snow,
I’d find out music in the hail
And all the winds that blow.

If I might see another Spring –
Oh stinging comment on my past
That all my past results in “if” –
If I might see another Spring,
I’d laugh to-day, to-day is brief;
I would not wait for anything:
I’d use to-day that cannot last,
Be glad to-day and sing.

 

Christina Rossetti 

 

"If", a significant word. I've collected several "Let"

and "Yet" poems here, and "If" has a place of it's own.

The question, the uncertainty, the sense of the tenuous nature of life -

all this in two letters.

 

And Rossetti's answer? The three letters -

"Now".

 

Take joy, now.

 

Do not wait.