Summer and Spring

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1928from The Tower16 lines

Summer and Spring

We sat under an old thorn-treeAnd talked away the night,Told all that had been said or doneSince first we saw the light,And when we talked of growing upKnew that we’d halved a soulAnd fell the one in t’other’s armsThat we might make it whole;Then Peter had a murdering lookFor it seemed that he and sheHad spoken of their childish daysUnder that very tree.O what a bursting out there was,And what a blossoming,When we had all the summer timeAnd she had all the spring.

Text: Poetry, by W. B. Yeats (Standard Ebooks, 2024), from the collected editions of 1908 to 1928. Public domain.

In brief

Summary

Two lovers find they halved a soul, but a rival had her spring.

The eighth poem of "A Man Young and Old". The old man remembers sitting with his love under an old thorn-tree, talking the whole night through about everything since they were born. Talking of growing up, they knew they had "halved a soul" and fell into each other's arms to make it whole. Then Peter looked murderous, because he and she had talked of their childhood under that very tree. The ending bursts into bloom: the speaker had "all the summer time", but Peter had "all the spring".

Lines to remember

Knew that we'd halved a soul

When we had all the summer time

And she had all the spring.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 4Under the thorn
The lovers sit "under an old thorn-tree" and talk "away the night", telling "all that had been said or done / Since first we saw the light". It is the total openness of young love, where two people try to share a whole lifetime in one night.
Lines 5 to 8Halved a soul
As they talk of growing up, they know "that we'd halved a soul", each holding half, and fall "the one in t'other's arms" to "make it whole". The idea of lovers as two halves of one being gives the moment a sense of fate.
Lines 9 to 12Peter's look
The comedy arrives with Peter and his "murdering look". He and she had spoken "of their childish days / Under that very tree". The same tree, the same confidences: the speaker's unique moment was not unique at all.
Lines 13 to 16Summer and spring
"O what a bursting out there was, / And what a blossoming" could describe both the quarrel and the love. The last two lines settle it with a gentle joke: the speaker had "all the summer time", her full-grown love, while Peter had "all the spring", her childhood.

Themes

Two halves of a soul

"We'd halved a soul" recalls the old Greek myth, told in Plato, that lovers are two halves of one being searching for each other. The speaker takes it in earnest: their embrace is to "make it whole". The same idea appears in "Among School Children", earlier in The Tower, where two natures blend "Into the yolk and white of the one shell".

Rivalry and time

Peter's "murdering look" brings jealousy into the idyll, but the ending shares the woman out by season. Spring, childhood, belonged to Peter; summer, the ripened love, to the speaker. The old man tells it with affection and a touch of mischief, the rivalry long since turned into a memory worth laughing over.

Context

"Summer and Spring" is the eighth poem in "A Man Young and Old", first collected in The Tower (Macmillan, 1928). Peter, the "pushing man" who shrieks that he is "King of the Peacocks" in "The Friends of his Youth", appears here as a young rival, so the old man's laughter at him in the earlier poem has a long history behind it.

Form

Sixteen lines in one block, in ballad metre, four-beat lines alternating with three-beat lines. The short lines rhyme ("night" and "light", "soul" and "whole", "she" and "tree", "blossoming" and "spring"), grouping the poem into four quatrains. The folk rhythm keeps the tone light even when it touches jealousy.

Summer and Spring