Ode to Spring

I love all of the seasons for each has its own beauty. I love the Summer for flip flops, long daylight hours, and the smell of freshly mowed grass. The Autumn brings on the nostalgic moments when I remember that life is a continuing cycle. The crisp crimson and gold leaves falling, big yellow school buses rolling, and patched quilts waiting make for a most inviting time of year. Then along comes Winter! Winter brings families together for holiday celebrating. The season doesn't stop in December. January tends to bring the most snow and the coldest days. It's a good month (as if there might be a bad one), to enjoy hot cocoa and cheese toast. Then somewhere along the way (shortly after Valentine's Day, while meditating under grey skies, the heart thinks of Spring. Enjoying the first 70 degree day, getting the earth ready for planting, and listening to birds chirping seem to be on everyone's mind. This is a poem that I just discovered by Eugene Field. It pays tribute to the season that will soon arrive after one of the coldest Winters in many years! May it warm your day and put a smile on your face!

One asketh:
"Tell me, Myrson, tell me true:
What's the season pleaseth you?
Is it summer suits you best,
When from harvest toil we rest?
Is it autumn with its glory
Of all surfeited desires?
Is it winter, when with story
And with song we hug our fires?
Or is spring most fair to you--
Come, good Myrson, tell me true!"

Another answereth:
"What the gods in wisdom send
We should question not, my friend;
Yet, since you entreat of me,
I will answer reverently:
Me the summertime displeases,
For its sun is scorching hot;
Autumn brings such dire diseases
That perforce I like it not;
As for biting winter, oh!
How I hate its ice and snow!

"But, thrice welcome, kindly spring,
With the myriad gifts you bring!
Not too hot nor yet too cold,
Graciously your charms unfold--
Oh, your days are like the dreaming
Of those nights which love beseems,
And your nights have all the seeming
Of those days of golden dreams!
Heaven smiles down on earth, and then
Earth smiles up to heaven again!"

~~~Eugene Field