• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Institute of Australian Culture

Heritage, history, and heroes; literature, legends, and larrikins

  • Home
  • Articles
  • Biographies
  • Books and booklets
  • Ephemera
  • Poetry and songs
  • Slang
  • Timeline
  • Topics
    • Anzac Day
    • Australia Day
    • Australian Aborigines
    • Australianism
    • Australian literature
    • The Eureka Rebellion
    • Explorers
    • Significant events and commemorative dates

Winter in Spring [poem by William Blocksidge (William Baylebridge)]

12 March 2021 · Leave a Comment

[Editor: This poem by William Blocksidge (also known as William Baylebridge) was published in Songs o’ the South (1908).]

II.

Winter in Spring

My Love, my Love, the warbler’s above;
The woods with his lays are ringing;
On bending bough, all little birds now
Their songs are a-gaily singing.
The violets blue, and the daisies, too,
On their dancing stems are showing;
And the pregnant earth, she has given birth
To the sweetest buds e’er blowing.

The brooklet trips, then onward it slips
With music in gladful measure;
The laden bees from the flowery leas
Have gathered their golden treasure.
The sun-god gives of the light that lives
In our hearts when all is gladness;
But my heart, my heart — who may tell the smart
In my heart, nigh filled to madness?

My Love, my Love, when all would approve
This power that old earth is mending —
What Nature dear doth lend to the year
When love with its like is blending —
Why cruel be, O my Heart, to me?
For my love is like a river
That has sprung from deep, and its way must keep
To the course it holds for ever.



Source:
William Blocksidge, Songs o’ the South, London: Watts, 1908, pp. 23-24

Editor’s notes:
brooklet = a small brook (i.e. a small creek)

doth = (archaic) does

e’er = (vernacular) an archaic contraction of “ever”

lay = song, tune; ballad (may also refer to ballads or narrative poems, as sung by medieval minstrels or bards)

lea = field, grassland, meadow, pasture

trip = to dance, run, or walk with quick light steps; a lively movement (especially of the feet, e.g. “to trip the light fantastic”, to dance); to flow easily (e.g. a phrase which trips lightly off the tongue); an excursion, jaunt, journey, voyage

Filed Under: poetry Tagged With: good poetry, love poetry, poem, Songs o’ the South (William Blocksidge 1908), SourceSLV, William Baylebridge (author) (1883-1942), William Blocksidge (author) (1883-1942), year1908

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Australian flag, 100hThe Institute of Australian Culture
Heritage, history, and heroes. Literature, legends, and larrikins. Stories, songs, and sages.

Featured books

The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses, by Banjo Paterson A Book for Kids, by C. J. Dennis  The Bulletin Reciter: A Collection of Verses for Recitation from The Bulletin The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, by C. J. Dennis The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang and Their Pursuers, by J. J. Kenneally The Foundations of Culture in Australia, by P. R. Stephensen The Australian Crisis, by C. H. Kirmess Such Is Life, by Joseph Furphy
More books (full text)

Featured lists

Timeline of Australian history and culture
A list of significant Australiana
Significant events and commemorative dates
Australian slang
Books (full text)
Australian literature
Rock music and pop music (videos)
Folk music and bush music (videos)
Early music (videos)
Recommended poetry
Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
Australian explorers
Topics
Links

Featured posts

Advance Australia Fair: How the song became the Australian national anthem
Brian Cadd [music videos and biography]
Ned Kelly: Australian bushranger
Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]

Some Australian authors

E. J. Brady
John Le Gay Brereton
C. J. Dennis
Mary Hannay Foott
Joseph Furphy
Mary Gilmore
Charles Harpur
Grant Hervey
Lucy Everett Homfray
Rex Ingamells
Henry Kendall
“Kookaburra”
Henry Lawson
Jack Moses
“Dryblower” Murphy
John Shaw Neilson
John O’Brien (Patrick Joseph Hartigan)
“Banjo” Paterson
Marie E. J. Pitt
A. G. Stephens
P. R. Stephensen
Agnes L. Storrie (Agnes L. Kettlewell)

Recent Posts

  • Mercenary Mum, by Neryl Joyce [book review]
  • The Year of the Angry Rabbit, by Russell Braddon [book review]
  • Western bush fire: Several crops burnt [5 January 1906]
  • Buy “Australian-Made” [by W. R. Bagnall, 22 June 1928]
  • The Bad Boy [poem regarding Henry Parkes, 12 May 1877]

Top Posts & Pages

  • The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • The drover’s wife [by Henry Lawson]
  • The Man from Snowy River [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Australian slang
  • Said Hanrahan [poem by John O’Brien]

Categories

Archives

Posts of note

The Bastard from the Bush [poem, circa 1900]
A Book for Kids [by C. J. Dennis, 1921]
Click Go the Shears [traditional Australian song, 1890s]
Core of My Heart [“My Country”, poem by Dorothea Mackellar, 24 October 1908]
Freedom on the Wallaby [poem by Henry Lawson, 16 May 1891]
The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]
Nationality [poem by Mary Gilmore, 12 May 1942]
The Newcastle song [music video, sung by Bob Hudson]
No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest [poem by Mary Gilmore, 29 June 1940]
Our pipes [short story by Henry Lawson]
Rommel’s comments on Australian soldiers [1941-1942]
Shooting the moon [short story by Henry Lawson]

Search this site



For Australia


Copyright © 2022 · Log in