Spring and Summer
Spring is growing up,
Is not it a pity?
She was such a little thing,
And so very pretty!
Summer is extremely grand,
We must pay her duty,
(But it is to little Spring
That she owes her beauty!)
All the buds are blown,
Trees are dark and shady,
(It was Spring who dress'd them, though,
Such a little lady!)
And the birds sing loud and sweet
Their enchanting hist'ries,
(It was Spring who taught them, though,
Such a singing mistress!)
From the glowing sky
Summer shines above us;
Spring was such a little dear,
But will Summer love us?
She is very beautiful,
With her grown-up blisses,
Summer we must bow before;
Spring we coaxed with kisses!
Spring is growing up,
Leaving us so lonely,
In the place of little Spring
We have Summer only!
Summer with her lofty airs,
And her stately faces,
In the place of little Spring,
With her childish graces!
"A."
Summer Days
Winter is cold-hearted;
Spring is yea and nay;
Autumn is a weathercock,
Blown every way:
Summer days for me,
When every leaf is on its tree,
When Robin's not a beggar,
And Jenny Wren's a bride,
And larks hang, singing, singing, singing,
Over the wheat-fields wide,
And anchored lilies ride,
And the pendulum spider
Swings from side to side,
And blue-black beetles transact business,
And gnats fly in a host,
And furry caterpillars hasten
That no time be lost,
And moths grow fat and thrive,
And ladybirds arrive.
Before green apples blush,
Before green nuts embrown,
Why, one day in the country
Is worth a month in town—
Is worth a day and a year
Of the dusty, musty, lag-last fashion
That days drone elsewhere.
Christina G. Rossetti.