In “I Have Seen the Spring,” Sara Teasdale’s speaker looks at a blossoming plum tree, lilacs, elm leaves, and birdsong and feels not wonder but fatigue. She has witnessed too many springs: the white blooms, the birds bragging at dawn, the shining grass all seem repeated, almost worn out by familiarity. Yet the poem does not stop at complaint. As she observes, “Nothing is lost,” she recognizes that beauty remains exactly as it was—the lilacs are still purple, the elm still dances in its veil of leaves. The only thing missing is “a few years” from her own life. The mood is quiet, wistful, and a little melancholy, mixing appreciation of nature’s continuity with a private sense of time slipping away.
I Have Seen the Spring — Summary
Nothing is new, I have seen the spring too often; There have been other plum-trees white as this one Like a silvery cloud tethered beside the road, I have been waked from sleep too many times By birds at dawn boasting their love is beautiful. The grass-blades gleam in the wind, nothing is changed. Nothing is lost, it is all as it used to be, Unopened lilacs are still as deep a purple, The boughs of the elm are dancing still in a veil of tiny leaves, Nothing is lost but a few years from my life.