The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-03-22
HOW SHALL WE MEET THE SPRING.
A Fragment of Spring Poetry Which Is Not
in Rhyme.


A Fragment of Spring Poetry Which Is Not
in Rhyme.
Charles Dudley Warner, in April Harper.
How shall we meet the springl This would
be an easier question to answer if we knew how
the spring, in this latitude, would meet US
whether half way, or. indeed, at all. For in this
matter we are not guided by experience. Hope
springs eternal in the northern breast. And we
allow ourselves to be deceived by many artificial
conditions we have created. We get seventy
and eighty degrees Fahrenheit by telegraph,
and fancy we are warmed. We eat green
peas and strawberries and the shad out Of
season, and fancy that we have changed the
course of nature. Lulled into negligence
by these appearances, man leaves off his over
coat, and next day sends for the doctor. The
doctor, who has all seasons for his own, regards
spring as his harvest-time. He saves more
lives then than in any other season. And lives
are worth saving then, for the man who gets
through spring is likely to be a good patient
all the year. There never was a notion so
without foundation as this, that doctors do not
want patients all the year. This faith in
spring is a beautiful trait in human nature.
We always expect that this spring will be early
and will be mild, and fifty years of d%isappoint-
ments do not sour us. If the winter is hard and
heavy, we say that is a sign Of early spring; if it
is open and tolerable, we know that we shall
have an open spring. More than this: our mem
Dry is colored like our hope, and as we go on in
years we say that in our youth spring was early,
mild and jocund. No trout rise so readily and
are so gamy as the trout Of our youth-eXeept
the trout we expect co throw a fly to this spring.
This is the nature Of man. No wonder that the
Psalmist exclaimed, What is man that Thou art
mindful of him2
How shall we meet the spring. We have
stood a long siege from November to April. A
part of the garrison have been ''braced up byit,
as they call it; others are weary and worn out,
and would have surrendered long ago if a flag of
truce had appeared. Their energies were
exhausted, and just when they need a
tonic there comes upon them at a leap
the facilitating heat of summer. This is, how
ever; only one way of looking at it. More
subtle influences are at work. The plants,
the trees, have had as hard a time as we have;
some of them are dead. But those that survive,
as soon as they feel the coaXing sun and the in
creasing warmth in the soil, begin to get up their
circulation, to quicken the pulse of their sap,
and to bourgeon into the most exquisite life. We
are much like them. Grumble as we will, we,
too, feel to the core of our being the
thrill of life newly beginning, and are born
again. This is a delicious feeling, this
tender sympathy in the renaissance of
ali things. this sentiment we feel about the
voice of the frog, and thefi first flush of pink and
green ON the trees, and the south wind. For
some days everybody, however old, is a possible
lover, and for some hours everybody is a poet.
He experiences a sensation that the poets have
never fully expressed, and that he cannot put into
words, or even into music. The song of a bird
swinging on a spray of apple blossoms comes
nv " expressing hAo L may HOO
last long, but while it does last it is like a taste
of paradise. This is one of the compensaJions
of our climate. The people in the tropics know
nothing of this sensation. They are not born
again annually, They know nothing of the joy
in contrast and change. Consequently they pro
duee no poetry, no literature; they invent
nothing; they make no progress" And they
are not unhappy.
We should go forth to meet the spring, as the
poet says, with a stout heart. We have had a
long rest from the innumerable insects, from the
busy fly and the expectant worm. We shall go
forth to sow, and to fight all these enemies with
new courage. Science is on our side to name all
these destroyers of our labors and our peace, and
to describe their habits. We feel a conscious
ness of superiority in this knowledge. There is
an excitement in taking up again the life arrested
for so many months. There is a perennial charm
in the colored Easter eggs, although we know
by experience that they will not all hatch. It
does not matter. Hope is a thousand times bet
ter than ~fruition. In the spring everybody re-
quests his mother to wake and call him early.