Spring, in Sarah A. Heinzerling's poem, is not a season but a woman, and a flirtatious one at that. The winds of March and April become her suitors, and the whole turn of the weather is retold as a courtship with rivals, rejections and a heroine who cannot be pinned down. It is a lighthearted idea, but the poem handles it with more wit and structure than its bouncy surface first suggests.
The story runs in four stanzas, one for each stage of the contest. In the first, the Northwind and the Southwind "sought / Fair, fickle Springtime's favor," and the word "fickle" quietly announces the ending before the poem has properly begun. The rivals spend March blustering and fighting until "blowing lost its savor", a nicely deflating phrase, since it makes the great struggle of the elements sound like a quarrel that simply wore everyone out. Anyone who has lived through a blustery March will recognize the joke: the wind goes on long past the point of being interesting.
The second stanza dismisses the loser with gentle dignity. The Northwind "sighed and whisked aside," the two verbs doing double duty, since sighing is human while whisking is what wind actually does. He is allowed a graceful exit as "a gallant world-wide rover," and the poem is kind to him. Even in defeat he returns "now and then," which is exactly what cold snaps do in early spring. The personification works because it never stops being weather. Every human gesture is also a meteorological fact.
The third stanza introduces the poem's one real surprise. The Southwind, apparently the winner, "lingered and caressed / His love in sylvan bower", a soft, warm picture of mild air moving through woodland. Then comes the interruption: "A saucy breeze sprang from the west, / And drenched him with a shower." The comedy lies in the word "saucy," which turns a rain shower into a cheeky rival who throws a bucket of water over the lover. This is the poem at its most playful, and it reminds us that April's gentleness is always mixed with sudden rain.
The final stanza completes the joke by turning the whole story on its head. Springtime, it turns out, has not been won at all. She smiles and "sought to beguile" the Southwind, but he too is a wanderer: "Through April days he went her ways, / Then to fresh loves went faring." The victor leaves, presumably for summer and whatever comes after. The poem closes on the idea that spring is a brief romance rather than a settled marriage, and that every lover, however successful, moves on. That is also simply how the seasons work, which gives the final lines a pleasing double truth.
The form supports this lightness. Each stanza is a quatrain rhyming ABAB, with the short second and fourth lines giving a quick, skipping rhythm, like a ballad or a nursery song. The poem also loves internal echo. "Fair, fickle Springtime's favor" piles up its f sounds, while "sighed and whisked aside" and "went her ways... went faring" chime within the lines themselves. Phrases such as "gallant world-wide rover" and "saucy breeze" give the winds distinct personalities in a handful of syllables.
What makes the poem worth reading is its economy and its tone. It takes a familiar subject, the changeable weather of spring, and finds a fresh and amusing way into it, never forcing the comparison further than it will go. There is no heavy moral, only a smile at the way the world keeps changing its mind. Its charm lies in letting weather, love and mischief share the same few lines.