When Chloris leaves town in spring, nature itself seems to mourn. Flowers refuse to bloom, birds stop singing, and winter storms hang on, all because she takes the season with her. Her lover, abandoned, is left to theatrical despair—sighing, languishing, dying from wounds she won’t cure. He rails at the god of Love for giving her a face that conquers hearts and overthrows religions, yet no mercy. Then he imagines her entering a temple, drawing adoring crowds, raising the dead, but unable to recall his life. He becomes, in his mind, a sacrificial victim for all love’s sufferers. The poem mixes playful overstatement with real longing: the speaker’s self-pity is over-the-top, but the ache beneath it feels genuine. A delayed spring mirrors a heart stuck in winter.
Song To A Fair Young Lady Going Out Of Town In The Spring — Summary
Ask not the cause why sullen spring So long delays her flow'rs to bear; Why warbling birds forget to sing, And winter storms invert the year? Chloris is gone; and Fate provides To make it spring where she resides.
Chloris is gone, the cruel fair; She cast not back a pitying eye: But left her lover in despair, To sigh, to languish, and to die: Ah, how can those fair eyes endure To give the wounds they will not cure!
Great god of Love, why hast thou made A face that can all hearts command, That all religions can invade, And change the laws of ev'ry land? Where thou hadst plac'd such pow'r before, Thou shouldst have made her mercy more.
When Chloris to the temple comes, Adoring crowds before her fall; She can restore the dead from tombs, And ev'ry life but mine recall. I only am by love design'd To be the victim for mankind.