Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AND SPRING AGAIN, by JOHN FREEMAN


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AND SPRING AGAIN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In a gray, a gray-green wood
Last Line: He trembled, and shrank sighing.
Subject(s): Seasons; Spring


IN a gray, a gray-green wood,
Where the trees were gray, the mist green,
Spring slept under the hood
Of Winter, Winter bony and lean,
Whose skeleton in the loud, long-breathing wind
Rocked, and was ever creaking.
In the gray-green wood
A voice was speaking.

In her sleep, in her dreaming sleep,
Spring was speaking.
Her voice was it crept from the deep
Of the hooded grave?
Was it the bones of Winter creaking,
The fox stirring, the owl's voice that from distance
Did with a mourner's footstep creep?
—No, Spring was speaking.

In a burning, a slow burning wood,
Life sank, dying, dying.
Fire burned sullen, lingering,
Emaciate light stumbled under the flood
Of the vast Nubian's hair;
But still awhile were uplifted
Her sallow arms in the west hemisphere,
Her voice was crying.

In a black, a smokeless wood,
Night spread her sheenless hair.
Winter gaunt, unattended, unhonoured stood
And stamped on a stony grave.
—Beware, beware, beware!
The owl shrieked, but still Winter hoofed the sod,
And still the owl shrieked. Then, at her long crying,
He trembled, and shrank sighing.





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