A poem about the spring, by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Flower God, God of the Spring

Flower god, god of the spring, beautiful, bountiful,
Cold-dyed shield in the sky, lover of versicles,
Here I wander in April
Cold, grey-headed; and still to my
Heart, Spring comes with a bound, Spring the deliverer,
Spring, song-leader in woods, chorally resonant;
Spring, flower-planter in meadows,
Child-conductor in willowy
Fields deep dotted with bloom, daisies and crocuses:
Here that child from his heart drinks of eternity:
O child, happy are children!
She still smiles on their innocence,
She, dear mother in God, fostering violets,
Fills earth full of her scents, voices and violins:
Thus one cunning in music
Wakes old chords in the memory:
Thus fair earth in the Spring leads her performances.
One more touch of the bow, smell of the virginal
Green – one more, and my bosom
Feels new life with an ecstasy.

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Flower god, god of the spring, beautiful, bountiful,
Cold-dyed shield in the sky, lover of versicles,

I thought at first this was vesicles, and was all ready to find a reason why a “small membrane-enclosed sac that can store or transport substances” made perfect sense in a poem praising the spring… But no – a versicle is a sort of prayer-leader. It’s the first line, usually uttered by a priest, of a call-and-response bit of prayer.

Priest: O Lord, open thou our lips:
People: And our mouth shall shew forth thy praise.
Priest: O God, make speed to save us:
People: O Lord, make haste to help us.
Priest: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
People: As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Priest: Praise ye the Lord.
People: The Lord’s name be praised.

Like that. The whole idea of the poem is that spring initiates life, and calls us back into life, after the winter. It’s a heavenly versicle that draws from us a very intense response. The flower god reveals itself now in the blue sky shielding us from winter.

Here I wander in April
Cold, grey-headed; and still to my
Heart, Spring comes with a bound, Spring the deliverer,

When I get to Heart, vesicle becomes versicle becomes ventricle … and as I wander in my head, I find icicle and canticle are there too — icicle because the poet has repeated “cold,” and canticle because once I know what versicle means, I’m thinking of song… But anyway, the poet, who walks in a spring wood, feels himself to be unspringlike — old, sad; yet the power of spring is so great that even he feels delivered from age and sorrow by it, brought from gray into a colorful world by it.

Spring, song-leader in woods, chorally resonant;
Spring, flower-planter in meadows,

The poet widens out the versicle idea. Spring is indeed a song-leader, making the trees and wind resound, respond to its leading voice.

Child-conductor in willowy
Fields deep dotted with bloom, daisies and crocuses:

The poet continues to play out his musical metaphor. Leader, conductor of music; and conductor of the children through the woods. Even dotted has musical resonance.

Here that child from his heart drinks of eternity:
O child, happy are children!
She still smiles on their innocence,
She, dear mother in God, fostering violets,
Fills earth full of her scents, voices and violins:

Far from grey-headed, the poet now, under the influence of spring, is a child again, having been led back to a state of eternal youth. Violets, voices, and violins – nature, humanity, and music all quicken under the flower god.

Thus one cunning in music
Wakes old chords in the memory:
Thus fair earth in the Spring leads her performances.
One more touch of the bow, smell of the virginal
Green – one more, and my bosom
Feels new life with an ecstasy.

Subtle, cunning, what the earth sings — a warble, swaying branches, a brook in motion. There are choral resonances to all of these sounds together, but they also form personal memory chords. Spring, the poet repeats, leads the earth-performance, the song of the earth, to get Mahlerian about it… And then the poet ends with images that complete his metaphor so beautifully and subtly: All it takes is a touch, a scent, of spring, and the poet feels reborn. The bow of the violin is also the bough of the tree that taps him; the smell of virginal grass is also music from the virginal, a kind of harpsichord.

Oh. Whoops. Too late. You were supposed to read this post while listening to this. Written for virginal.