All this joy

Hopkins says it well. Spring fills us with joy and with the energy of life. He believes it is because we link back to the freshness of life in the Garden of Eden, when everything was optimistic and without deceit or disappointment. Maybe. It certainly gives one a new energy as all around we see nature reawakening. We know we have to leave the Garden. But moments there refresh us. We will not spoil it by thinking ahead.

NOTHING is so beautiful as spring—
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89)