From Love’s Labors Lost
John’s related banter…
Good morning, Hank.
It’s Tuesday, March 26th, 2013, also known as spring. You know, spring…(quotes William Shakespeare, from Love’s Labour’s Lost)
Spring, (quotes William Blake, To Spring)
Spring, which is like a woman who says, (quotes Carl Sandburg, Three Spring Notations on Bipeds)
Spring, when (quotes A. E. Housman, Spring Morning)
(Quotes Emily Dickinson, A Light exists in Spring) Where is this light, Emily Dickinson? Is it down there with the snow? Is it up there in the grey sky of doom? Because that looks exactly like the winter light!
Hank, when the Yeti [John’s in-video nickname for his wife, Sarah Urist Green] and I first moved to Indianapolis, we dropped off the moving van at the U-Haul place, and the guy was like, “Welcome to Indianapolis!”
And I said, “How long have you lived here?” And he said, “Oh, about 30 years.” And I said, “Well, what do you think of it?” And after a second, he said, “Well, you gotta live somewhere.” I think that’s probably how a lot of people feel about their hometowns, but I’ve really come to love Indianapolis, even in… the spring snow.
It’s an unpretentious city of hidden beauty, which is by far my favorite kind of beauty, and it’s lovely, even in winter. But I am ready, Hank, I am ready for spring. Hank, the calendar has made me a promise that outside has failed to keep, stupid outside, always ruining everything.
So Hank, I don’t actually believe that magical thinking works or anything, but I thought for today’s video I would share my favorite poem about spring in the hopes that like spring will like happen.
I also love this poem because it reminds us that poetry is partly in the business of getting us to try to pay attention. It’s by e. e. cummings.
You gotta live somewhere, Hank, but you also get to live to somewhere. So brace yourself, my friends, spring is coming.
Hank, I’ll you on Friday.
vlogbrothers | A Poem for Spring
When daisies pied and violets blue
And lady-smocks all silver-white
(Unquoted remainder)
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he:
“Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo!” O, word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
“Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo!” O, word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
John Green Reads Poetry 