‘Well, who doesn’t want the sun after the long winter?’ In her poem, Spring, Mary Oliver asks what everyone is thinking, especially as we were allowed some rare March sunlight.

For the poets, spring was a sign of a world replenished, a sign of a renewal of life. It is well loved by us and by the poets, and very much needed after a cold English winter.

This is seen even in poetry dating all the way back to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1387-1400) where in the ‘General Prologue’ he praises the coming of April as the flowers begin to bloom and life is renewed once more.

As April draws near, I am constantly reminded of Robert Browning’s Home-Thoughts, from Abroad: ‘Oh, to be in England Now that April’s there.’

For us it can be difficult to find the beauty in England when winter takes a hold.

The trees are bare; the grass drowned in mud and the sky remains a monotonous grey. But April reveals its once hidden beauty.

For many, it is easy to mistake Romantic poetry as something purely melancholic, lamenting on the woes of life. But there is far more to it than that.

For the Romantics, the Pastoral (an idealisation of rural landscapes and life) is tied intrinsically to spring.

This is not surprising; I find that we often see natural beauty when it has been gone for so long- it is all new and beautiful in spring.

William Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud is one of the truest indicators of the joy of the Romantic poets. Not only does Wordsworth acknowledge this himself, ‘A poet could not but be gay,’ but he also writes about the importance of the bond between humans and nature.

The daffodils dance and his heart dances as well. This is a poem of hope, where the time of renewal brings joy to the people that witness it.

Perhaps, we could all do well to do something similar- acknowledge the beauty of nature.

Our environment finds itself becoming increasingly destroyed. The green fields, the daffodils by the lake, and the thick woods that surrounds our campus may not be around forever.

We should embrace the beauty we find all around us and live in spring for as long as it will let us.

As spring has sprung again let us all remember the poets who worship it, the Romantics who found love for the nature of their own country. When the sun is out let us all go to the woods, to the fields, to the hills and see what people have celebrated for so long.

Allow yourself time to bask in the sun. Afterall, it is what the poets would have wanted.

Image credit: Grace Barnett