Spring

15+ Must-Read Spring Poems

(15 to start, 75+ to explore)

Poems about spring celebrate the rejuvenation of nature after the long winter slumber. These verses capture the essence of the season’s renewal, portraying blooming flowers, budding trees, and the return of vibrant colors to the landscape.

Poets often use evocative language to evoke the sensory delights of spring, from the fragrance of fresh blossoms to the gentle warmth of the sun. These poems may also explore themes of rebirth and hope, symbolizing the cyclical nature of life and the promise of new beginnings.

Through their images, poems about spring inspire appreciation for the beauty of the natural world and the joy of seasonal transitions.

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Sonnet 98

by William Shakespeare

Read Shakespeare’s Sonnet 98, ‘From you have I been absent in the spring,’ with a summary and complete analysis of the poem.

Sonnet 98 of the 154 sonnets written by Shakespeare, depicts the poet’s disappointment over the fact that he could not appreciate all the beauty of spring. It is one of the sonnets addressed to the fair youth, and he feels sorry for he is absent from the young man. As a result, spring seemed like winter to him. It is a wonderful description of spring. According to Tennyson, “it’s a bittersweet poem about the season.

From you have I been absent in the spring,

When proud pied April, dressed in all his trim,

Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,

That heavy Saturn laughed and leapt with him.

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Nationality: English
Themes: Beauty, Nature
Form: Quatrain
Genre: Lyric
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Lines Written in Early Spring

by William Wordsworth

‘Lines Written in Early Spring’ by William Wordsworth is a beautiful landscape poem that is largely concerned with nature.

This poem captures the scenic beauty of the spring season. In the poem, the speaker, muses over nature, its beauty, and its seamless existence. Meanwhile, his thoughts are clouded briefly with the misery of man. Parallel to the new beginning and the warmth of the season took over by his inner sadness, he wonders ‘what man has made of man’ in the poem.

I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

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O Were My Love Yon Lilac Fair

by Robert Burns

The song ‘O Were My Love Yon Lilac Fair’ by Robert Burns conveys a deep longing for a love wholly as captivating as red roses and lilacs.

For Robert Burns, the romantic poet, the season has served as a source for expressing his love. He imagines his beloved as lilac and projects himself as a bird sheltering in her petals and singing. In this beautifully illustrated poem of love in spring, the speaker is claiming that both good and bad in life is guaranteed. He paralleled the image of the flowers blooming in all the seasons with the cyclic pattern of man’s life.

O were my love yon Lilac fair,

  Wi' purple blossoms to the Spring,

And I, a bird to shelter there,

  When wearied on my little wing!

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Young Lambs

by John Clare

John Clare’s ‘Young Lambs’ is a sonnet celebrating spring’s arrival, focusing on renewal and innocence through vivid natural imagery.

John Clare’s poem the Young Lambs is a simple poem written using simple language. The poet has captured the arrival of the season within the vivid image she has used. He lists down the ways in which one could understand the arrival of the spring season. Largely, the poem is just a record of the season, that the poet has seen and felt.

The spring is coming by a many signs;

The trays are up, the hedges broken down,

That fenced the haystack, and the remnant shines

Like some old antique fragment weathered brown.

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Loveliest of Trees

by A. E. Housman

‘Loveliest of Trees’ by A. E. Housman is a joyful nature poem in which the speaker describes how powerful the image of cherry blossom trees is in his life. He takes a great deal of pleasure from looking at them.

This poem reflects the thought of the young speaker, who at the age of twenty has seen twenty springs come and go. He vows to make the most of it, as he thinks, he may live only to see another fifty. It has many of Housman’s has a formal metre and rhyme, and a sense of melancholy despite the positivity of the season, which is considered to be the trademark of his poems.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

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Form: Petrarchan Sonnet
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Spring

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

‘Spring’ juxtaposes the lush beauty of the season with a call for Christ’s protection of innocence, echoing Eden’s lost purity.

This poem effectively reflects upon the beauty of spring. Calling on specific examples, such as weeds, eggs in birds’ nests, bird songs, lambs, blue skies, and lush greenery, the poem elaborates on the beauty and freshness of the world. The speaker sees the clean and bright world in spring and compares it to the Garden of Eden. Through the religious imagery of the garden of Eden and the pathetic end, he seeks God to protect the innocence of spring and youth.

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

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A Light Exists in Spring

by Emily Dickinson

Dickinson’s ‘A Light Exists in Spring’ describes an almost ethereal light that exists in spring and illuminates our surroundings and lives.

The season of Spring is presented in an extremely positive light in the poem, with Dickinson taking great care to explain that the mysterious light only appears during that season. This is in keeping with the manner in which the season is celebrated in Christian belief as the period of the year associated with new life and forgiveness because it was when Jesus was crucified and then resurrected.

A Light exists in Spring

Not present on the Year

At any other period —

When March is scarcely here

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Spring

by Christina Rossetti

Rossetti’s ‘Spring’ captures the beauty of spring, juxtaposing new life with its inevitable end, reflecting on nature’s cyclical dance.

Christina Rossetti’s ‘Spring’ is less known yet carries a fine description of the springtime. The poem celebrates the new life begins all over again, which was buried beneath the earth all through the winter. Like in many of Rossetti’s poetry, ‘Spring’ too makes the reader feel an ephemeral sense of melancholy co-exist along with the beauty of spring, as Rossetti insists on the temporary aspect of the season.

Frost-locked all the winter,

Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits,

What shall make their sap ascend

That they may put forth shoots?

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The Spring

by Thomas Carew

‘The Spring’ by Thomas Carew is a poem about unrequited love in spring. The poet mourns the fact that no matter the season, his beloved does not love him.

Carew presents a vivid description of the arrival of spring in this piece. Right from the melting of snow to the singing of birds, Carew fills the poem with scenes and sounds relating to the titular season.

Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost

Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost

Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream

Upon the silver lake or crystal stream;

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Today

by Billy Collins

‘Today’ by Billy Collins captures the joy of a perfect spring day, urging freedom and celebration of nature’s renewal.

The poet is in the full spirit that he plans to let free the ones in the paperweight. His mood is elated by the spring day that he has encourages the readers too to enjoy the day with him. The poem, on the whole, is a depiction of how spring makes one feel. As in the words of Collins, a perfect spring day can make someone “throw open all the windows in the house.”

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,

so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

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Coming

by Philip Larkin

‘Coming’ by Philip Larkin is about spring and how emotional its arrival can be. The peace, joy, and promise of spring rub off on Larkin’s speaker in a wonderful way.

Larkin’s ‘Coming’ is about spring and how its arrival changes the landscape. This piece unravels the beauty in nature by using a number of images that hint at new beginnings.

On longer evenings,

Light, chill and yellow,

Bathes the serene

Foreheads of houses.

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The Thrush

by Edward Thomas

‘The Thrush’ by Thomas contrasts human perception of time with a bird’s simple joy in the present, highlighting nature’s timeless beauty.

This poem is written in the form of a conversation to describe the cyclic nature of the season. He implies the difference between the bird and him through his ability to distinguish between months and seasonal changes. The poet delineates the idea that the Thrush may know the differences between the seasons. But, the poet is fully aware of the fact that winter gives way to spring and spring will eventually turn into winter.

When Winter's ahead,

What can you read in November

That you read in April

When Winter's dead?

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Spring

by William Blake

Blake’s ‘Spring’ from ‘Songs of Innocence’ embodies renewal and purity, showing vibrant life and harmony among children, animals, and nature.

The poem is all about spring and the happiness it brings. It describes how everything in nature comes back to life after winter, from birds singing to children playing and lambs jumping in the fields. Spring is shown as a time of joy and energy, where the whole world seems fresh and full of life, making it a perfect celebration of the season. The poem captures the beauty of nature waking up.

Sound the flute!

Now it's mute!

Birds delight,

Day and night,

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To Spring

by William Blake

‘To Spring’ by William Blake is a thought-provoking and beautiful poem that celebrates Spring. The poet uses repeated examples of personification and figurative language in order to describe the season. 

The entire poem is about the arrival of spring and how it changes everything. The poet describes spring as something powerful, almost magical, that transforms the land and brings warmth after a long, cold winter. He treats spring as if it has a personality, calling on it to come and renew the world. The poem celebrates this season and its ability to bring new life and beauty.

O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down

Through the clear windows of the morning, turn

Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,

Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!

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Child’s Song in Spring

by Edith Nesbit

‘Child’s Song in Spring’ rejoices in nature’s vigor and childhood wonder, depicting trees as lively, individualistic characters.

As the title suggests, 'Child's Song in Spring' is specifically focused on spring. It portrays the excitement and anticipation surrounding the arrival of springtime, highlighting the renewal and growth that accompany the season.

The chestnut’s proud and the lilac’s pretty,

The poplar’s gentle and tall,

But the plane tree’s kind to the poor dull city –

I love him best of all!

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