Happy Easter! However you celebrate (or don’t celebrate), I hope you have a wonderful day.
In honor of the spring season, I’m sharing a poem from the Spring section of Bartlett’s Poems for Occasions. Although this poem describes beauty of nature it also deals with some philosophical questions, which is why I’m drawn to it. But really, the lines that hook me are the third and fourth – why is it that pleasant thoughts sometimes do bring sad thoughts to mind?
Lines Written in Early Spring
By William Wordsworth
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.
To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.
Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:—
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.
The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.
If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?
A Semi Nomadic Kind of Life 