Mere words have not the power to convey
the loveliness laid out before my eyes;
this triumph of rebirth; this lustrous day;
this crowning of Creation’s enterprise.
This is the time when man and bird and beast
awaken in the season’s warm embrace.
This is when Flora’s variegated feast
adorns the landscape with luxuriant grace.
The silken waters and the luscious green
share murmurings of Mother Nature’s love,
while further up, by lowly things unseen,
the sunlit treetops touch the sky above.
The daffodil, the swallow on the wing,
and even man: all hail the glory of Spring!
M. P. Lauretta lives in the U.K., where she enjoys watching (and writing about) nature and current events. She is currently working on two new collections: one of sonnets and one of villanelles. Her first collection, entitled To a Blank Page and Other Poems, is still available from Amazon, Apple iBooks, and Barnes & Noble.
Aaaahhhhh
I did enjoy reading these lines; full of descriptive words; a wonderful subjeft; and every line ‘scans’ . . . . . . . . . . until the last.
As I read this poem I asked myself for whom it was written: in my mind it is clearly for the pleasure of the poet. This does not detract from its worth; it indicates to me the ability of the poet to express her thoughts as her mind gets absorbed and carried away in putting them into a structure of words. My pleasure was to see her succeeding; until the last sentence: ‘glory’ has two syllables and the resulting hiccup took my mind out of the picture Lauretta paints and into a technical wrangle on scanning. This is not meant unkindly; and I use your family name as a first name as M. P. does not allow me to address you more familiarly.
Your poem gives me these interesting thoughts, curiously enriched by ‘glo-ry’.
Thank you for the compliments.
Indeed the last line requires a minor elision bringing together ‘-ry’ and ‘of’, but I decided to leave that line as it is because reading it this way forces a slight hesitation after the colon (when one works out how to read what follows) which then ends up emphasising the last sentence.
You explain what I have subsequently ‘sensed’ myself; thank you. And Joe (following) says rightly ” I am sure the poet intended it”.
I later realised also you were returning to the title of the verses too and so needed some licence of metre in how the last 6-9 words were paced. I didn’t have the temerity of Leo (following) to suggest a cure; and now know any change would not cure but spoil the ending.
I have re-read your poem many times because of the hiccup. And I had already conjured up in my mind before noticing the so-similar picture by Janmot.
Your delightful poem has occupied my mind continuously since it was first posted: thank you.
I am glad you have enjoyed my poem.
There should be a paragraph break after ‘enterprise’ – but I am sure it will be restored before long.
I would call the final foot not an iamb requiring elision, but an anapest used as a variant foot in the poet’s closure strategy. The line that struck me was “Flora’s variegated feast,” a description that provides a delicious way to look at Spring in this most refreshing sonnet!
Dear Margaret
I am glad you enjoyed my sonnet.
And that you allow me to substitute an anapest for an iamb!
“Flora’s variegated feast [which] adorns the landscape with luxuriant grace” follows on and is part of “the loveliness laid out before my eyes”.
In other words, the poem conveys the perception of a concerted effort by the forces of nature to create the stunning spectacle that is Spring.
It is a beautiful and delicately written poem nonetheless, but the last line tripped me up as well, though for a different reason.
I read “all hail the glory of Spring!” as a proclamation (All hail, your Majesty!) and not as a part of the narrative, as I’m sure the poet intended it.
Anything beautiful and delicate these days is very much appreciated!
Yes, well spotted.
The final line is indeed a proclamation – the culmination of a whole poem articulating my wonderment at “this crowning of Creation’s enterprise”.
While the poem is not religious, it almost elevates nature to the level of the divine.
M.P.,
So much for me being sure I knew what you intended!
Well, I guess a clue might have been the exclamation mark.
A fine, comfortable poem to read. The last line is easily fixed with “all hail the glorious Spring”. Thanks,
Alternatively, Leo, assuming anything needs to be “fixed”:
and man: all hail, the glory of the Spring.
For persons living in Wisconsin (and other places), spring isn’t always all that glorious. They call it Mud Season.
A truly beautiful linguistic picture of Spring in my homeland. I love the liberal use of lush alliteration littering the stanzas throughout. I especially like the celebratory sentiment – I adore this season in the UK and you have captured its fresh arrival perfectly. Oh those jocund daffodils! ❤️
Thank you, Susan. I am glad you like my poem.
I submitted this sonnet because it brims with positivity and we all need some of that at the moment (myself included).
A sumptuous piece of work, MP.
I must confess to sometimes finding ‘seasonal’ poems to be a tad monotonous, but every now and then I find one which really stands out; yours is one such, owing to its flowing diction, lush language (“share murmurings of Mother Nature’s love”), and the genuine feeling with which you seemingly wrote it. I’m also indebted to the poem for introducing me to the word ‘variegated’.
I too am mildly unsettled with the closing line. I can just about see your point of wrenching the last two letters of ‘glory’ and the word ‘of’ (ry of) into one syllable (the GLOR eeuv SPRING – eeuv being the one syllable), and I’m aware that another commenter’s suggestion of using ‘glorious’ would only achieve the same effect (the GLOR eeuss SPRING. I can’t help feeling it’s a bit of a stretch, but I think you’ve just about pulled it off. I suppose it just depends on how each individual reads it. As another commenter suggested, you could easily have made it ‘the spring’ to perfect the meter, but I realise this would’ve lessened the effect of the actual ‘hailing of spring’.
My bigger quibble in that line (but still only a minor one) is with the word ‘even’. It makes it sound like it’s unusual for Man (capital M) to be mentioned in the same breath as the natural world: ‘The daffodil, the swallow, and even Man!!’ . . as though it’s a surprise that Man would be hailing spring; as though Man wouldn’t normally hail spring. I feel you could’ve used those four syllables (and-e-ven-man) differently, with something such as:
The daffodil, the swallow on the wing,
The trees, and Man: all hail the glory of Spring.
Just a thought.
Hi Monty
First of all, thank you for the compliments.
I’m afraid I intentionally put that “even” to set humankind apart since it has, to a great extent, alienated itself from the natural world – especially city dwellers, who have only limited contact with it. A daffodil or a swallow’s existence is harmoniously interwoven with the natural environment, without impacting it the way we do.
What a beautiful explanation of ‘even’, MP. I can now see exactly how and why you used it, and I agree wholeheartedly with your reason for doing so; Man’s arrogant indifference towards nature fully justifies you slightly separating him from the natural world. Good thinking.