Words for All Seasons

The plan of this book is simple - indeed, as Malcolm Saville says in his Foreword, it is basic, because the pattern of our lives follows the unchanging rhythm of the seasons. In the spring the world is renewed and when a baby is born a new life begins, he says, summer is the time of growth as Nature prepares for harvest, and so our lives and personalities mature as we leave childhood behind. Autumn has been called the crown of the year, but perhaps fulfilment is a better word. And so with us. The crown of our years is when we fulfil ourselves as men and women. In winter the natural world sleeps, but it is Shelley, one of the greatest of British poets, who reminds us that 'If Winter comes, can spring be far behind?' This book builds a delightful picture of the changing seasons through excerpts of prose and poetry both well-known and obscure, and in doing so it offers both a literary celebration of the yearly cycle of Nature, and a meditation on life.