[Young]1 leaves grow green on the banyan twigs,
And red on the [peepul]2 tree,
The honey-birds pipe to the budding figs,
And honey-blooms call the bee.

Poppies squander their fragile gold
In the silvery aloe-brake,
Coral and ivory lilies unfold
Their delicate lives on the lake.

Kingfishers ruffle the feathery sedge,
And all the vivid air thrills
With butterfly-wings in the wild-rose hedge,
And the [luminous]3 blue of the hills.

Kamala tinkles a lingering foot
[In the grove where temple-bells ring,
And Krishna plays]4 on his bamboo flute
An idyll of [love and spring]5.

L. Lehmann sets stanzas 1, 3-4

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Confirmed with Sarojini Naidu, The Bird of Time. Songs of Life, Death & the Spring, London: William Heinemann, 1912.

¹ Lehmann: "New"
² Lehmann: "almond"
³ Lehmann: "tremulous"
⁴ Lehmann: "By the shrine in the tamarind grove,/ While Gopal blows"
⁵ Lehmann: "spring and love"

Text Authorship:

• by Sarojini Naidu (1879 - 1949), "Spring", appears in The Bird of Time - Songs of Life, Death, and the Spring, in 2. Songs of the Springtime [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Liza Lehmann (1862 - 1918), "New leaves grow green", published 1907, stanzas 1,3-4 [ soprano, alto, tenor, orchestra ], from The Golden Threshold : An Indian Song-Garland , no. 14, London: Boosey & Co. [sung text checked 1 time]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2023-08-15
Line count: 16
Word count: 100