Spring in New Hampshire by Claude McKay

Spring in New Hamphire

by Claude McKay, 1920

Too green the springing April grass, 
Too blue the silver-speckled sky, 
For me to linger here, alas, 
While happy winds go laughing by, 
Wasting the golden hours indoors, 
Washing windows and scrubbing floors. 

Too wonderful the April night, 
Too faintly sweet the first May flowers, 
The stars too gloriously bright, 
For me to spend the evening hours, 
When fields are fresh and streams are leaping, 
Wearied, exhausted, dully sleeping.

Source: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21416

Analysis: Claude McKay whose work preceded, influenced and participated in the Harlem Renaissance was a unique poet. His work can nearly be divided into two categories his pastoral contemplative work, and his activist modern work. Though McKay gets most of his acclaim for his bleak unapologetic poetry primarily about racism and the urban experience, he wrote enough poetry that is softer in tone that we have to accept it as sincere, and not simply as subversive and ironic. "Spring in New Hampshire" is an excellent example of this style. 

     McKay's poem, which encourages us to get out doors and experience nature, is as relevant today as ever. He is proposing simply, that the day is too beautiful to stay inside. The most striking poetic touch has to do with how he's constructed his two stanzas. Each use a simple end rhyme scheme ABABCC, familiar as the last six lines of a Shakespearean sonnet, but also starts the sentence with the same letter scheme TTFWWW, except his second stanza adds switches the third W for a third T.