A Celebration of Spring

David Hide and Carol Hayton consider Shelley’s poem ‘The Sensitive Plant’.

The poem ‘ The Sensitive-Plant’ was written during the spring of 1820 when Shelley was staying in Pisa. The poet observed the Mimosa Pudica, the sensitive plant of the title , in an Italian Garden and in the poem he reflects on its unique delicacy. In this lovely extract of the poem, however , it is clearly the flowers seen in English gardens that he describes to evoke the beauty of spring. These lines lift the poem. We hope that this extract and these images from Wakehurst’s spring floral displays will lift spirits as we move into the gentler season.

A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew,
And the young winds fed it with silver dew,
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light.
And closed them beneath the kisses of Night.

And the Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

But none ever trembled and panted with bliss
In the garden, the field, or the wilderness,
Like a doe in the noontide with love’s sweet want,
As the companionless Sensitive Plant.

The snowdrop, and then the violet,
Arose from the ground with warm rain wet,
And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent
From the turf, like the voice and the instrument.

Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall,
And narcissi, the fairest among them all,
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream’s recess,
Till they die of their own dear loveliness;

And the Naiad-like lily of the vale,
Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen
Through their pavilions of tender green;

And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,
It was felt like an odour within the sense;