Spring, when the earth is like a child that knows poems by heart

She wore her yellow sun-bonnet, 

She wore her greenest gown;

She turned to the south wind 

And curtsied up and down. 

She turned to the sunlight 

And shook her yellow head, 

And whispered to her neighbour: 

"Winter is dead." 

Spring has arrived in the antipodes and as always A.A. Milne's poem from When We Were Very Young pops into mind.  For once, aptly temperate weather accompanied the arrival of spring with unusual alacrity. The title was stolen from Rilke's description of Spring - the image of a fresh faced child of innocence, beauty and budding future filled with beautiful words expressing beautiful thoughts. To keep this post thematic, and because any excuse to enjoy Wordsworth is a good excuse, here's perhaps one of his most loved poems, composed after a saunter in Spring which chanced him on a belt of daffodils. 

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.