17 Poems about Spring for Kids

April is National Poetry Month, a time to celebrate poets and their craft. It’s also the perfect time to study poetry with your learners. Here are 17 of our favorite poems about spring for kids.

Whether you’re new to poetry study or poetry tea time is a daily occurrence in your home, it’s always a great time to introduce children to poetry.

As you read through this collection, you will notice that these are not your typical “kids” poems, and this is intentional. We believe that introducing kids to poetry that is above their reading level is an excellent way to expand their vocabulary and deepen their understanding of language. Because the length and cadence of poetry are enticing to children, they find the new words less daunting than they would if they encountered them in a lengthier text.

Even young children will take delight in the vivid imagery found in spring poems and the clever rhymes that pull us in and give us a whole new way of thinking about not only the subject matter, but language itself.

However, if you’re working with kids in the early elementary years, you may find it easier to introduce them to some of the shorter poems first, or choose a single stanza from a longer poem to read and discuss.

I highly recommend choosing a few of these poems to display in your learning space during the spring season. Use them as inspiration for unit studies or for your own forays into poetry writing. For older kids, grab some poetry books for teens to introduce a bounty of new poems.

Learn about the poets, discuss the ideas found in their poems, and then use our poetry writing prompts to get a head start on your budding authors’ first poems.

Short Poems About Spring

Because the needs and preferences of your learners will vary depending on their ages, I’ve tried to sort these poems about spring by length. The first four are relatively short and would be great starter poems for younger kids working on copyworb or poem memorization.

Spring

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

A Spring Morning

John Clare

The Spring comes in with all her hues and smells,
In freshness breathing over hills and dells;
O’er woods where May her gorgeous drapery flings,
And meads washed fragrant by their laughing springs.
Fresh are new opened flowers, untouched and free
From the bold rifling of the amorous bee.

The happy time of singing birds is come,
And Love’s lone pilgrimage now finds a home;
Among the mossy oaks now coos the dove,
And the hoarse crow finds softer notes for love.
The foxes play around their dens, and bark
In joy’s excess, ’mid woodland shadows dark.

The flowers join lips below; the leaves above;
And every sound that meets the ear is Love.

On a Lane in Spring

John Clare

A Little Lane, the brook runs close beside
And spangles in the sunshine while the fish glide swiftly by
And hedges leafing with the green spring tide
From out their greenery the old birds fly
And chirp and whistle in the morning sun
The pilewort glitters ‘neath the pale blue sky
The little robin has its nest begun
And grass green linnets round the bushes fly
How Mild the Spring Comes in; the daisy buds
Lift up their golden blossoms to the sky
How lovely are the pingles and the woods
Here a beetle runs; and there a fly
Rests on the Arum leaf in bottle green
And all the Spring in this Sweet lane is seen

Spring Quiet

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Gone were but the Winter,
Come were but the Spring,
I would go to a covert
Where the birds sing;

Where in the whitethorn
Singeth a thrush,
And a robin sings
In the holly-bush.

Full of fresh scents
Are the budding boughs
Arching high over
A cool green house:

Full of sweet scents,
And whispering air
Which sayeth softly:
‘We spread no snare;

‘Here dwell in safety,
Here dwell alone,
With a clear stream
And a mossy stone.

‘Here the sun shineth
Most shadily;
Here is heard an echo
Of the far sea,
Though far off it be.’

The First Spring Day

By Christina Georgina Rossetti

I wonder if the sap is stirring yet,
If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate,
If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun
And crocus fires are kindling one by one:
Sing, robin, sing;
I still am sore in doubt concerning Spring.

I wonder if the springtide of this year
Will bring another Spring both lost and dear;
If heart and spirit will find out their Spring,
Or if the world alone will bud and sing:
Sing, hope, to me;
Sweet notes, my hope, soft notes for memory.

The sap will surely quicken soon or late,
The tardiest bird will twitter to a mate;
So Spring must dawn again with warmth and bloom,
Or in this world, or in the world to come:
Sing, voice of Spring,
Till I too blossom and rejoice and sing.

Nest Eggs

Robert Louis Stevenson

Birds all the sunny day
Flutter and quarrel
Here in the arbour-like
Tent of the laurel.

Here in the fork
The brown nest is seated;
Four little blue eggs
The mother keeps heated.

While we stand watching her
Staring like gabies,
Safe in each egg are the
Bird’s little babies.

Soon the frail eggs they shall
Chip, and upspringing
Make all the April woods
Merry with singing.

Younger than we are,
O children, and frailer,
Soon in blue air they’ll be,
Singer and sailor.

We, so much older,
Taller and stronger,
We shall look down on the
Birdies no longer.

They shall go flying
With musical speeches
High over head in the
Tops of the beeches.

In spite of our wisdom
And sensible talking,
We on our feet must go
Plodding and walking.

Buttercups and Daisies

Mary Howitt

Buttercups and daisies,
Oh, the pretty flowers,
Coming ere the spring time,
To tell of sunny hours.
While the tree are leafless,
While the fields are bare,
Buttercups and daisies
Spring up here and there.

Ere the snowdrop peepeth,
Ere the crocus bold,
Ere the early primrose
Opes its paly gold,
Somewhere on the sunny bank
Buttercups are bright;
Somewhere ‘mong the frozen grass
Peeps the daisy white.

Little hardy flowers,
Like to children poor,
Playing in their sturdy health
By their mother’s door,
Purple with the north wind,
Yet alert and bold;
Fearing not, and caring not,
Though they be a-cold!

What to them is winter!
What are stormy showers!
Buttercups and daisies
Are these human flowers!
He who gave them hardships
And a life of care,
Gave them likewise hardy strength
And patient hearts to bear.

The Bluebird Song

Emily Huntington Miller

I know the song that the bluebird is singing,
Out in the apple tree where he is swinging.
Brave little fellow! the skies may be dreary—
Nothing cares he while his heart is so cheery.

Hark! how the music leaps out from his throat!
Hark! was there ever so merry a note?
Listen a while, and you’ll hear what he’s saying,
Up in the apple tree swinging and swaying.

“Dear little blossoms down under the snow,
You must be weary of winter I know.
Listen, I’ll sing you a message of cheer!
Summer is coming! and springtime is here!

“Little white snowdrop! I pray you arise;
Bright yellow crocus! please open your eyes;
Sweet little violets, hid from the cold,
Put on your mantles of purple and gold;
Daffodils! Daffodils! say, do you hear?—
Summer is coming, and springtime is here!”

Daffodils

William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company;
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

To a Butterfly

William Wordsworth

I’ve watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower;
And, little Butterfly! indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless!—not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!

This plot of orchard-ground is ours;
My trees they are, my Sister’s flowers;
Here rest your wings when they are weary;
Here lodge as in a sanctuary!
Come often to us, fear no wrong;
Sit near us on the bough!
We’ll talk of sunshine and of song,
And summer days when we were young;
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now.

---

I hope these beautiful poems about spring for kids inspire you and your learners to go outside and bask in the spring sun, and then write some poetry of your own.

Leave a comment below and let me know your favorite spring poem for kids and don’t forget to save this post to Facebook or Pinterest so you can find it later.