In April
by Sylvia Townsend Warner (Collected Poems, Carcanet Press)

I am come to the threshold of a spring
Where there will be nothing
To stand between me and the smite
Of the martin’s scooping flight,
Between me and the halloo
Of the first cuckoo.
‘As you hear the first cuckoo,
So you will be all summer through.’
This year I shall hear it naked and alone;
And lengthening days and strengthening sun will show
Me my solitary shadow,
My cypressed shadow – but no,
My Love, I was not alone; in my mind I was talking with you
When I heard the first cuckoo,
And gentle as thistledown his call was blown.

(b 1893 – d 1978)

Spring Afternoon
by U. A. Fanthorpe (Collected Poems 1978-2003, Peterloo Poets)

The doves purr in the trees. The wild inmates
Of Stoke Park Mental Hospital next door
Shout their improper comments from barred windows.

Forsythia burns. Homely wallflowers breathe out
The smell of heaven. The nurses and the patients
Are taking tea in deckchairs in the garden,

Under the trees. Depressives and obsessives
Call gaily to us as they play at croquet.
The epileptics doze off in the grass.

Caged in normality, we dumbly watch
From our dark office windows, feel that something –
Spring? or our sanity? – has let us down.

It was snowing a few days ago, so I know it’s spring. We have noisy bluetits flying through any tiny gap offered by an open window, attempting to find a resting place somewhere out of the biting wind, and sparrows feed their young in nests stacked four deep up the side of a drainpipe next to my study window. It looks like sparrow high-rise. Newborn lambs bleat in the fields outside as we try to sleep at night; perhaps the shock of being unexpectedly propelled from their mothers’ safe, warm wombs into freezing muddy slush gives them reason to test their new vocal chords.

I am grateful for poetry that avoids their darling, bouncing tails (before they are ringed and drop off like furry, dead worms), their happy gambolling, their rain-washed little faces and their neatly curled, short, white coats. Along with primroses and crocuses, they are difficult to capture in poetry without the words appearing to be straight from an Easter greetings card. They are just so huggable and cute. Of course, in a few months’ time the words I’ll use to describe them will include rosemary, mint sauce and a temperature of 180 degrees.

I have chosen two poems that feature spring, and which are in no danger of ever finding their way on to a greetings card. (I used to work for a greetings card company many years ago – if my old boss is out there, it would be lovely to hear from you!) There are no lambs here, no newly hatched chicks, no Easter bunnies; only human beings in two very different situations.

In Sylvia Townsend Warner’s poem In April she is preparing for spring on her own, observing the house martin and hearing the cuckoo. This follows the loss of a loved one, because if the loved one were alive she would surely not plan on being “naked and alone”. And if I were in doubt, in the phrase “My cypressed shadow” the cypress referred to is a finely woven fabric worn for mourning. The subject’s shadow is not only black because it’s a shadow, but because it’s a widow’s shadow.

“As you hear the first cuckoo,/ So you will be all summer through.” This is the superstition she diverts from its course, because, as she says, “I was not alone; in my mind I was talking with you”. And so it will be all summer through; although she has lost someone, they will be with her, caught in her mind and her memory for the rest of the year, just as they were at the first cuckoo’s call when it was “blown” like thistledown; dispersed; the old saying rendered harmless. The poem is a talisman against the loneliness to come; a love poem in which the beloved remains with the writer, despite their absence.

U. A. Fanthorpe’s poem Spring Afternoon makes me feel there is something slightly surreal in the air the moment the doves purr in the trees. Doves, when they coo, do sound rather as if they are purring, but since purring is associated only with cats, the use of the word elicits a sense that the world we are about to be presented with is not a normal one. We are told that “forsythia burns”, but of course, it is the vibrant yellow of the flowers themselves that is flame-like – unless the “wild inmates/ Of Stoke Park Mental Hospital next door” have set it alight. The idea of them shouting their “improper comments from barred windows” makes us glad that they are incarcerated; it allows us to feel safe while we take in the view that includes them. We know the wallflowers are blooming because their scent is “the smell of heaven” – such a smell being different for each of us, inasmuch as our various heavens all differ – and the nurses and patients are “taking tea in deckchairs in the garden”. The genteel image that this conjures up is in direct contrast to those other inmates who shout improper comments; the conflict between these two elements of the one scene makes me think of a painting by Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516), in which the madness of his subjects is often quite evident in their antics.

Our writer observes the “depressives and obsessives” happily playing croquet, who call out gaily, wanting to engage those who watch – and the epileptics dozing in the grass. Of course, she can’t know that they’re epileptics because they’re dozing rather than fitting, but her description of the scene emphasises the glory of a spring afternoon that can be experienced only if one is actually outside. Spring is seen to have calmed even those whose state is often very opposite. By contrast, our writer, speaking as one of many, is “caged in normality” and, watching from a dark office window, feels to have been let down by spring or sanity or something.

Who is sane, here? Those who embrace the moment to the fullness of their ability, however impaired that ability might be? Or those who restrict themselves to the point where, from the safety of their own self-imposed cages they look out on to the less fortunate – who enjoy the afternoon wholeheartedly – to find themselves the prisoners? frieda.hughes@thetimes.co.uk

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