Much of Christina Rossetti's poetry is filled with a homesick
love of spring, the season of a promise ever lovlier than its
own fulfilment. Longing for "the limpid days" with their tender
colors, their budding shoots, their small beguiling birds and
beasts, is one in her regret for the lost youth of the soul.
Both have the same heart-breaking beauty, pure and evanescent,
that can never long continue its unsmirched freshness. There is
no time like Spring, Like Spring that passes by; There is no
life like Spring life born to die, — Piercing the sod, Clothing
the uncouth clod, Hatched in the nest, Fledged on the windy
bough, Strong on the wing: There is no time like Spring that
passes by, Now newly born, and now Hastening to die. [Christina
Rossetti, "Spring"] There, for Christina, lies one of the
central human tragedies. We let youth slip from us regardless of
the treasures it is bearinginto oblivion, with the same
unperceptiveness that lets theglories of spring go by unheeded.
Sometimes we are merely dull of h