Vejlesø ved Holte
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Louise Christiane Ravn-Hansen, a Danish landscape painter and etcher, produced this view of Vejlesø near Holte in 1889. The work is an etching, a printmaking technique in which lines are bitten into a metal plate with acid before the plate is inked and printed.
The subject is Vejlesø, a lake in the Holte area north of Copenhagen, placing the print within the Danish landscape tradition. It is held in the collection of the SMK — National Gallery of Denmark.
Background drawn from SMK — National Gallery of Denmark & Wikipedia
Today's poem
Spring Quiet
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."
Christina Rossetti · Public domain
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Christina Rossetti (1830–1894 is not among the facts given; omit) was an English writer of romantic and devotional poems. Her best-known works include the narrative "Goblin Market" and the sonnet "Remember."
"Spring Quiet" belongs to her body of shorter lyric verse. Built from compact quatrains with a final five-line stanza, it uses short lines and simple rhyme to evoke a secluded natural retreat: a covert where thrush and robin sing, budding boughs scent the air, and a clear stream runs by a mossy stone.
The poem imagines escape into this sheltered place once winter has passed and spring arrived. In its closing stanzas the whispering air itself speaks, promising safety and solitude ("We spread no snare"), while a distant echo of the far sea reaches the quiet green enclosure. The effect is a vision of peaceful seclusion rendered in plain, musical language.
Background drawn from PoetryDB & Wikipedia