SPRING SONNETS by HARRY GOODE

Georgia Elliot

Spring

Most people find their juices start to flow

when Spring is burgeoning, dark days have fled,

and poets lyricise that Winter’s dead.

First blackthorn blossoms that are white as snow,

then metaphors, like thrushes. rinse and wring

to show the fashion of the earth has changed

and shoures soote across the sky are ranged

and then the whitethroat builds and blackbirds sing.

Brave Eliot, alone of all that crew,

saw just how cruel the coming change can be

that tears us from our roots. For sure, he knew

that that which brings new life just ages me,

the man that somehow grew out of the boy.

The flowers return in Spring but not the joy. *

·      Russian proverb, quoted by Anton Chehov in his play Ivanov.

Again

‘Again,’ said the demon, ‘all, all again.

Each and every year will be repeated,

all the moments recapitulated.

Youth! Joy! When you thought you were on the wane.’

Sleep-heavy was her breast, warm in my hand.

The stars circled, dawn came, a chaffinch voiced.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘yes! This time I’ll make the choice.

I’ll not let love escape. I’ll not be blind.’

‘You cannot pick and choose,’ the demon said.

‘It’s all or nothing that I offer you.

Errors are finely woven in the thread,

all the mistakes. There will be nothing new.

Once it is written, you cannot be free.

All joy wants deep, deep, deep eternity. *

·       Friedrich Nietzsche Thus Spake Zarathustra – part IV

Beanstalk

This would be the last time, never again

setting out to follow with boot and pack,

in sun and shower, leadings of the track,

past stile, on moor and down and country lane.

This would be the last mile, and here’s Beanstalk,

a bower, uncovenanted by map,

where dog-rose petals fall into my lap

and flowers, scented, on the Sussex chalk.

Here’s shade and rest and tea and scones are served,

and one more mile along the way to Firle.

I should have kept those last few steps reserved,

held back for another time, another world,

that I might tread them always, year by year.

Respires-en sur moi l’odorant souvenir. *

·      Marceline Desbordes-Valmer Les Roses de Saadi