Lyric Poem · Nature
Spring Carol
1WHEN loud by landside streamlets gush,
2And clear in the greenwood quires the thrush,
3With sun on the meadows
4And songs in the shadows
5Comes again to me
6The gift of the tongues of the lea,
7The gift of the tongues of meadows.
8Straightway my olden heart returns
9And dances with the dancing burns;
10It sings with the sparrows;
11To the rain and the (grimy) barrows
12Sings my heart aloud -
13To the silver-bellied cloud,
14To the silver rainy arrows.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Spring Carol” by Robert Louis Stevenson — quilloak.com/poems/spring-carol
Quick facts
- Poem
- Spring Carol
- Poet
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Length
- 28 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Nature, Love, Spring
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 28 lines · 4 septets
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Robert Louis Stevenson1850–1894
- Source record
- PoetryDBSpring Carol by robert-louis-stevenson, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 4708f9cceee98796…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.