In D. H. Lawrence’s “The Enkindled Spring,” spring arrives not gently but as a violent, dazzling fire. Trees, bushes, and blossoms become green flames, smoke, and sparks; the whole landscape seems to be burning with new life. The speaker is amazed, even stunned, by this roaring energy and by the human faces streaming through it.
Then the poem turns inward. Among all this leaping combustion, he wonders what kind of fire he is, and the answer feels unsettling. His spirit is thrown around like a shadow, buffeted by the flames and finally lost. The mood is ecstatic but also uneasy—nature is fiercely alive, yet the speaker feels disconnected from that power, more like a flickering shadow than part of the blaze. What begins as wonder ends in a quiet sense of being overwhelmed and left out.