SPRINGTIME

Ah, what flashing and fragrance!

Ah, how the meadows laugh!

Ah, what aubades are heard!

FOLK BALAD

In my morning half-asleep, I am put out of sorts by a devilish squalling of little children. Finally, unable to sleep anymore, I jump out of bed in despair. Then, when I gaze at the countryside from my open window, I realize that the noisemakers were the birds.

I go out to the vegetable garden and I sing my thanks to the God of the blue day. A free concert of beaks, fresh and endless! Capriciously the swallow utters her ripply twittering in the well; the black bird whistles on the fallen orange, the fiery oriole chatters from one ilex to another; the greenfinch gives its long, frequent laughs at the top of the eucalyptus; and on the big pine the sparrows argue furiously.

What a morning! The sun poses its silver-and-gold cheerfulness on the earth; butterflies of a hundred colors play everywhere, among the flowers, through the house (now inside, now out), on the fountain. All over, the countryside opens up into crackings and creakings, into a boiling of healthy new life.

It's as if we were inside a huge honeycomb of light which was also the interior of and immense, flaming-hot rose.

Juan Ramon Jimenez, (from Platero y yo)