There blooms no bud in May...

This is the right time of year for a beautiful poem by Walter de la Mare. It doesn't seem to be anthologised. I only found it because I was reading a book by someone, a short story maybe? - I can't remember now - and they quoted the last verse. I took me years to find the poem, but I did find it. In a De la Mare anothology I found in a second hand bookshop in Brighton. So here it is.


THERE BLOOMS NO BUD IN MAY

Walter De la Mare

There blooms no bud in May
Can for its white compare
With snow at break of day
On fields forlorn and bare.

For shadow it hath rose.
Azure and amethyst;
And every air that blows
Dies out in beauteous mist.

It hangs the frozen bough
With flowers on which the night
Wheeling its darkness through
Scatters a starry light.

Fearful of its pale glare
In flocks the starling rise
Slide through the frosty air
And perch with plaintive cries.

Only the inky rook,
Hunched cold in ruffled wings,
Its snowy nest forsook
Caws of unnumbered Springs.


What a wonderful world we live in. And how joyful Walter De la Mare will be when he wakes from the sleep of death and finds himself in the restored earthly Paradise.

We will all have 'unnumbered Springs' to look forward to then.