The First Spring Day

Christina Rossetti

Teacher card

Published: 1866, in Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems
Length: 18 lines, 136 words, 1 word in 34 is long
Year band: Reading load: Years 3–4. A guide from word length, not a curriculum level.
Themes: spring
Time: 5–10 min, depending on the activity

The text

I wonder if the sap is stirring yet,If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate,If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sunAnd crocus fires are kindling one by one:Sing, robin, sing;I still am sore in doubt concerning Spring.

I wonder if the springtide of this yearWill bring another Spring both lost and dear;If heart and spirit will find out their Spring,Or if the world alone will bud and sing:Sing, hope, to me;Sweet notes, my hope, soft notes for memory.

The sap will surely quicken soon or late,The tardiest bird will twitter to a mate;So Spring must dawn again with warmth and bloom,Or in this world, or in the world to come:Sing, voice of Spring,Till I too blossom and rejoice and sing.

Christina Rossetti (died 1894), Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems (1866), lines 2373–2392 of Project Gutenberg ebook #16950. Public domain in Australia: the author died before 1955. Copied word for word and checked against the ebook.

What to do with it

One link and one task line for each activity. Send a student the one you want them to do, or print this page and hand it round; each link has a QR code.

Its lines are dealt for the sky in the weather poemsin weatherline · 18 lines · about 5–10 min
Task for students (you can change the sentence before you print; nothing is saved)See where weatherline takes lines from this poem, then read today's poem the sky has chosen.
See where weatherline takes lines from this poem, then read today's poem the sky has chosen.
weatherline.popplepoetry.com/sources#ro-firstspring

Send the whole hand-out

This page’s link. Students open it, read the text and pick what to do; nothing asks them to sign in.

Link for the whole text

https://popplepoetry.com/find/rossetti-first-spring-day · popplepoetry.com