ANOTHER SPRING
IF I might see another Spring,
I’d not plant summer flowers and wait:
I’d have my crocuses at once,
My leafless pink mezereons,
My chill-veined snowdrops, choicer yet
My white or azure violet
Leaf-nested primrose; anythin
To blow at once, not late.
If I might see another Spring,
I’d listen to the daylight birds
That build their nests and pair and sing,
Nor wait for mateless nightingale;
I’d listen to the lusty herds,
The ewes with lambs as white as snow,
I’d find out music in the hail
And all the winds that blow.
If I might see another Spring—
Oh stinging comment on my past
That all my past results in “if”—
If I might see another Spring
I’d laugh to-day, to-day is brief;
I would nog wait for anything:
I’d use to-day that cannot last,
Be glad to-day and sing.
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
Uit: A Victorian Posy — Penghalion’s scented treasury of verse and prose, edited by Sheila Pickles. — London, Pavilion Books Limited, 1987.
Meer poëzie uit dezelfde bundel — in de vorm van een gedicht van Laetitia E. Landon — is te vinden op de site Tempel der Dichtkunst in een bijdrage van heden.
Voor meer gedichten van Christina Rossetti zij verwezen naar ons artikel De enige sister tussen al die mannetjes van de Pre-Rapahaelite Brotherhood, opgenomen op 24 juli 2009.