Atavistic pleasure in the changing seasons

Having a party after the Winter sleep, a welcome return

Pretty pink daisies, a present from last year, a welcome return Hey nice to see you.

When you have a balcony it is often easier to have annual plants, that go well with each season. Geraniums and maybe a Bougainvillea in the Summer, heather,pansies and cyclamens in Winter. I like to make room though for a few perennial plants. I find great satisfaction in seeing them bloom profusely, having been practically invisible all Winter and showing none of the promise of their magnificent blooms. It gives me as much pleasure as a large shrub in a garden to see them make their welcome  appearance in a vase.
This poem by Henry Vaughan, I think reminds us of the pleasures of the passing of the seasons. that if it were Summer all the time we wouldn't appreciate Springs wonderful show. Henry Vaughan (1621-16959, cam from the Brecon Beacons, in Wales. He dearly loved the countryside that he grew up in, and it says something that he could write a poem like this, because it rains an awful lot in Wales.I am very fond of this little poem because I like to think of Henry Vaughan loving the countryside where he grew up and enjoying nature, all those hundreds of years ago, and feeling just like we do now.

Were all the year one constant sunshine,we
Should have no flowers,
All would be drought and leanness; not a tree
Would make us bowers;
Beauty consists in colours ;and that's best
Which is not fixed but flies and flowers.


This poem by Samuel Daniel, a British poet and Historian, (1562-1619) also tells us of the pleasure the poet found in nature. the word 'bosom' is always guaranteed to raise a smile at school.

Now each creature joys the other
Passing happy days and hours;
One bird reports unto another
By the fall of silver showers;
Whilst the earth, our common mother,
hath her bosom decked with flowers.