Newness of Spring

While a new season of Spring has arrived, a lovely reminder of all things Spring comes from Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem, Spring.

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
   A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

Hopkins uses so many alliterative words (the repetition of sounds in several words of a line) to speak of the beauty of Spring. Try reading these lines out loud. They are kind of like tongue twisters. Full of a fresh feeling of newness and birth in all that is good and pure. With the new life that I have just met, my niece Elliott, I read this poem with joy of her birth, in the Springtime, and the joy that comes with the new beginning. The purity and innocence that she has. As Hopkins praises all that Spring holds, he reminds us to look and remember that it won't last forever. We "cloud" it over and "sour" it with sinning.

Enjoy every moment of the unclounded beauty.

The precious gift of a baby and the innocence of the pure love sinks into me now, in this season of newness.