Nature Conversations: The Innocent Spring

The Innocent Spring

Edith Sitwell
1887-1964

In the great gardens, after bright spring rain,

We find sweet innocence come once again,
White periwinkles, little pensionnaires,
With muslin gowns and shy and candid airs.

That under saint-blue skies, with gold stars sown,

Hide their sweet innocence by spring winds blown,
From zephyr libertines that like Richelieu
And d’Orsay their gold-spangled kisses blew;

And lilies of the valley whose buds blonde and tight

Seem curls of little school-children that light
The priests’ procession, when on some saint’s day
Along the country paths they make their way;

Forget-me-nots, whose eyes of childish blue,

Gold-starred like heaven, speak of love still true;
And all the flowers that we call “dear heart,”
Who say their prayers like children, then depart

Into the dark. Amid the dew’s bright beams

The summer airs, like Weber waltzes, fall
Round the first rose who, flushed with her youth, seems
Like a young Princess dressed for her first ball.

Who knows what beauty ripens from dark mould

After the sad wind and the winter’s cold? –
But a small wind sighed, colder than the rose
Blooming in desolation, “No one knows.”

Nature Conversations