The Spring by Thomas Carew appears in the Songs of Ourselves, Volume 2 (Cambridge University Press), studied for IGCSE and International GCSE Literature (Cambridge International 0475). Your school confirms the anthology selection, and the board's current syllabus lists it for your exam year.
What the poem is about
The speaker describes winter ending as snow and frost give way to the warm sun. Birds, insects and animals return to life, and the countryside seems to welcome May. Twice the poem pauses to name the one exception: the woman he loves stays cold.
Even shepherd lovers from pastoral poetry now meet outdoors in the shade. The closing lines sum up the contrast with a neat image of summer in her eyes and winter in her heart.
Themes and ideas
Renewal in nature
Spring thaws the earth and rouses sleeping creatures. Carew fills the poem with signs of growth and movement.
Unreturned love
Everything joins the season except the beloved. Her coldness hurts more because the rest of the world is so warm.
Pastoral convention
Classical shepherd names and an idealised countryside place the poem in a literary tradition. That tradition makes the complaint feel elegant rather than raw.
Appearance and feeling
The woman looks warm but feels cold. Carew separates what her face promises from what her heart gives.
Form, structure and sound
The poem is written in rhyming couplets with a steady, regular metre. Most of its length builds a cheerful catalogue of spring, so the short complaints land with surprise.
The word 'only' signals each turn from nature to the beloved. The last couplet works as a witty summary, balancing two months that stand for opposite feelings.
How to write about it
Show how Carew structures the poem as a long build-up followed by a sharp contrast. Pick two or three images of thawing or waking and link them to the frozen heart.
Brief quotations are fine because the poem is public domain. Discuss whether the tone is truly hurt or playful and polished.
A useful comparison for an anthology question is The Darkling Thrush, because the two poems share enough ground to compare. Our guide to comparing two poems shows how.
A teacher can read The Spring by Thomas Carew with your child and practise a timed answer in a one-hour trial.
An exam-style question to practise
How does Carew contrast the season with the speaker's beloved in 'The Spring'?
Plan your answer in five minutes before you write. Choose three points from the themes and form notes above. Then check your plan against the mark scheme section below.
More question angles
- Explore the ways Carew presents nature in the poem.
- How does the ending of 'The Spring' sum up the poem?
How this maps to the mark scheme
Examiners mark poetry answers against assessment objectives. These are the skills the paper rewards. For Cambridge International 0475, the objectives are summarised on our qualification page.
- AO1: Show detailed knowledge of the content of literary texts in the three main forms (drama, poetry and prose), supported by reference to the text.
- AO2: Understand the meanings of literary texts and their contexts, and explore texts beyond surface meanings to show deeper awareness of ideas and attitudes.
- AO3: Recognise and appreciate ways in which writers use language, structure and form to create and shape meanings and effects.
- AO4: Communicate a sensitive and informed personal response to literary texts.
- The four assessment objectives carry equal weight, about 25% each.
For The Spring, build your reading around “Renewal in nature” and “Unreturned love”, and support each point with a short quotation. Then explain how the form, structure and sound in the section above create that meaning.
Where a question asks you to link poems, compare The Spring with The Darkling Thrush. Keep any context about Thomas Carew brief and tied to the words on the page.
Read the poem alongside these notes. This page is our own analysis and original teaching material. Where we quote this public-domain poem, it is a short, attributed phrase.
Where to go next
Practise the method on an unseen poem with our guide to reading an unseen poem, then see a worked answer in our comparing poems model response. Browse more anthology poems or read about Literature in English tuition.
When you have written an answer on The Spring, a paid one-hour trial lesson lets the teacher who would continue mark it with you.