This Business Of Spring

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 226, 24 September 1938, Page 3 (Supplement)

This Business Of Spring

CURIOUS the other day to knov exactly when spring began, I looked in a calendar and found the date was September 24. Con* sidering we had been enjoying daffodils for some little time, and my oldest friend had made his annual complaint about the effect of spring on his health, 1 was surprised. 1 observed further that summer began on December 23, autumn on March 22, and winter not until June 23. Thin i» worth remembering. If or Christmas Pay we have to huddle over fires we shall have the melancholy satisfaction of knowing that it ought really to be Mimmer, and while away the time by agreeing that the seasons are not what they were, and we don't know what the country is coming to. But this i« the astronomical way of reckoning the season*. The meteorologist, a lens precise person in these matters, puts down the beginning of spring at the first of September. The gardener, I should say, reckon* August as the first spring month. To the romanticist, especially the lover, spring may be any time after early winter. You may reme:nber that in O. Henry's story, "The Easter of tbe Soul," Mr. "Tiger" McQuirk was puzzled by his feelings on a day in March, so cold that there was still snow about. Mr. McQuirk felt "like there was going to be earthquakes or music or a trifle of chills and fever or maybe a picnic." Later on, however, when he called on Annie Maria Doyle, he found out what was the matter: At six o'clock Herr Lots began to close bis shop. He heard a well-known shout: "Hello, Dutch I" "Tliti-r" McQuirk. In his shirt-sleeves, with lil» bat on the back on his head, •tiiod outside In the swirling snow, pulling at a black cigar. 4< , "Donnerwetter 1" shouted Lutz, <f" winter. he has gome back again }«. "Yt>r a liar, Dutch," called back Mr. Mwjuirk with a friendly geniality. It < springtime, by the watch." The Swerving Season There is irony in the strict division of the year in this country, where there is nothing certain about the weather except its uncertainty. After all, however, what else can you expect in a land that is just a ridge in the oceanT It is a good climate this of ours, a grand climate in fact, but there are times when one wishes it were a little more dependable. From a picnic to a race meeting. there isn't an outdoor entertainment that you can fix with any great confidence. We have, for example, a remarkable awakening of interest in the drama, and w-e should be producing out-of-door plays. In Auckland there are a dozen natural amphitheatre sites that in California would be seized for this piir|HM4e, and consider a place like the archery lawn in the Christchurch Gardens, but nothing could be a more dismal flop than an open-air play in the wind and the rain. We are often told we should have more outdoor restaurants in New Zealand, and anyone who has tasted the delights of dinner on a warm evening at a boulevard table in Paris will agree. But a man prominent in the hotel business in this country told me some years ago that he had gone into the matter pretty thoroughly, and come to the conclusion that the •Muriate was against it. I quoted to him gently Killing's reference to "the

By Cyrano

unswerving season," and he snorted. Kipling, it is clear, never set his heart on a Ranfurly or Plunket Shield match, only to see it ruined by rain. Climate and Character It is a commonplace that we are the most English of the Dominions, more English than the English indeed, more loyal than tlie Crown. One reason must be the climate. It's a much better climate than England V—sunnier, less foggy and warmer—but it's the same kind of climate. The saying that last year summer was. on a Wednesday, and the new version of the old rhyme, "Dirty days has September," could come from Britain or Xew Zealand. I have just been reading Professor Macneile Dixon's admirable little book, "The Englishman." He stresses the seriousness of the Englishman, his preoccupation with philosophy and morals, his meditations on death. Under skies greyer than those of Latin countries the English developed a pensive spirit and a dissatisfaction even in their own material achievements. Are we following the same road? We are a serious people, though not so much in our mental employments as in our mental attitudes. We do not joke or laugh easily, and we are suspicious of wit. With the English, as Professor Dixon notes, the perception of the irony of things leads not only to reflective melancholy, but to humour. The English are essentially humorous. Are we ? We are certainly different from our Australian relations, and climate is one explanation. The author of "Cobbers" found three reasons for the easy optimism of the country Australian, and tvtfo of them had to do with climate. "How can anything go wrong enough really to matter (unless you are a farmer driven mad by drought) when day after day is gloriously sunny and warm?" Then there was the spirit of "Give-it-a-go," "a hard-ridden horse by Micawber out of Sunshine." The Spring Poet It's time I got back to spring. This is supposed to be the season of all seasons for the poet. He is popularly believed to thrill to the first note of the cuckoo, the first delicate green on the willows, the first jonquil and, after gazing pensively at the landscape, to rush to his study or attic and write. Generally. I should say, he does nothing of the kind, but goes about his daily work like anybody else and lets the emotion* produced by spring germinate in his mind for days, weeks, or even months. There is, it is true, a great deal of poetry written about spring, wore than about any of the other seasons. and the best of that poetry is peculiarly intoxicating, like the famous chorus about the hounds of spring on winter'* traces: For winter's rains and ruins are over And all the season of snows and gins ; The days dividing lover and lover. The light that lose*, the night that wins ; And time remembered Is grief forgotten. And frosts are slain and flowers begotten. And In green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins. It may have rather more sound than sense, bnt, O, what sound! It illustrates, however, the peculiarity of spring as an inspiration. The subject,

as Mr. Humbert Wolfe suggests in his introduction to "A Winter Miscellany," is a little too companionable for the poet's good:

The strange glacial charm or winter has had the power ro lend outline often to the work of the poormt poet : it has touched that of the greater with the loving craftsmanship of Benvenuto Cellini working in ice. Spring with its too easv blandishment has proved fatal to all hut the best. The verse of the world is littered with the corpses of rathe primrose* that died not because they were forgotten but because they . were sentimentallv rempmbered. Not so with winter. Indeed, as Walter de la Mare once said to me. it's difficult to go wrong Vsth winter—so austere it is, so restrained a mistress. Being such a season has drawn all poets with its grave enchantment, and not least Shakespeare. Indeed one could have made a complete section of "Shakespeare's Winter" that would not only have been incomparably lovely, but would have been as long as a summer's day.

And bear in mind that there are two Odes to Autumn greater, as poetry, than anything of similar length written about spring. But, as editors know, this won't stop the poets writing about spring. * ♦ ♦ ♦ Spring In The Air Springs laughter holds a secret note Of exultation—for she known That thorny hedge, and leafless bush, briar, will blossom like the rose. And every hollow in the marsh II ill glow with buttercup's pale gold, And, heather like a tinted cloud, M ill veil the valleys' crease and fold. Mo swift'y do her bright fires burn— Such alchemy does she possessThat every hush, and flower, and tree Breaks forth into new loveliness. The buds swell all along the bough, And bees play havoc in the clover, Daisies ring the grass and blue Periwinkles tumble over. — Shirley Larchmont.