Spring
O’er nearly all
the earth spring’s glory folk proclaim.
A sorry proof of
what’s so oft said in the main:
That taste in this
our land (our globe is here my meaning),
If not the worst,
to reckon good is idle dreaming.
Should I be given
leave, this then is my intent,
To show the
world’s high praise of spring is praise ill spent.
Pure Christian
love, nought else, might see me entertaining
The urge to give
my neighbour’s taste a little planing.
(To polish taste,
I think, one tends to use a file;
But planing seems
to me to better fit my style.)
Seldom do I
believe what’s done so by too many;
And yet such
endless songs exist, they’re two a penny,
Which praise sweet
days in May, that I, on pleasure bent,
Would make for
Flora’s meadow – and behold! I went.
It did not take me
long the East Gate to be leaving,
Soon after which I
stopped, so I might deeply breathe in
The balsam whose
delights are often sweetly sung,
And rapturously I
cry: You scent of flowers, come!
Oh Zephyr, on your
silken wings it here be bringing!
At which I have
Aeolus in my visage springing,
Who wroth, since I
his cousin Zephyr so did greet,
Blows dust, whose
scent to tell from balsam’s were no feat.
The west wind does
not blow, my hurt soon let me know it,
As gently on the
reader as upon the poet.
But though I
little good from Flora now dared hope,
Judged by the
welcome with which I now tried to cope,
My piety gave me
strength to advance though gales were swishing,
My hope, with due
attention, was to go on wishing
For beauty of some
kind perhaps to come my way
That could the
verdict on my neighbour’s taste allay.
And in this pious
hope, the dust brushed off or shaken
That recently my
vision quite from me had taken,
I now beheld green
fields – they were – Good Lord, I mean:
You know what
fields all tend to look like when they’re green.
The highly curious
man, whose time is soon outdated,
Can at such
wonders though quite soon his gaze have sated;
My eyes’ poor
substitute for such a sight was blurred
Since they still
smarted from the dust they had incurred.
But hark! And can
that be the merry lark I’m hearing,
What eye has just
now lost may yet my ear be cheering.
What’s this?! It’s
only sound I hear in this bird’s trill,
As if a tuned
piano’s being struck at will.
In vain would
cows, pigs, sheep with roaring, grunting, bleating
With their
accompaniment the fine song be completing.
And every voice could
call the other’s voice its peer,
But for the
music’s sake I stand no longer here.
Still
was my neighbour’s taste worth some show of kind favour;
Still
from one more attempt my piety did not waver. –
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