Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.

I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Monday, April 14th, 2025.

Today's poem is by J.R.R. Tolkien, and it's sometimes called When Spring Unfolds the Beach and Leaf,

but it's also, maybe by some better known as the song of the Ent and the Ent Wife. Tolkien began working on this poem in

or around the year 1938 and spent a little more than 15 years tinkering with it off and on. It began

probably as a kind of monologue, and it's unclear whether he had originally connected it

in his mind to the Lord of the Rings or not, but eventually he struck on putting this poem

into the mouth of treebeard, the ant or shepherd of the trees that meets Mary and Pippen in

the two towers. And from there, the rest is history. In the final version, Tolkien has adapted this poem into a

piece of antiphonal poetry between two voices that speak one to the other, and then end in unison.

I always find this poem to be exceptionally representative of maybe everything, Tolkien.

It combines the hopeful nature of springtime, the blooming of flowers and the growth of plants,

and the hope and optimism that comes with all of that. And yet it's tinged with

sadness because this hopeful return of life reminds the speaker, at least the ant

speaker of the beloved, of the aunt wife. The celebration of the Easter tide is fast approaching,

so we know that spring is a time associated with return and rebirth, but for the ant,

though the spring brings back so many things, it has not yet brought about the return of the beloved.

But just as spring returns year after year, so hope springs eternal.

Here is when spring unfolds the beech and leaf, or the song of the Ent and the Ent wife.

End. When spring... song of the ant and the end wife. Ent.

When spring unfolds the beach and leaf and sap is in the bow, when light is on the wildwood

stream and wind is on the brow, when stride is long and breath is deep and keen the mountain air,

...