Origin

Song of Spring was first printed in A Book of Nursery Songs and Rhymes (1895). It appears there as “XXXII. Song of Spring,” directly followed by “XXXIII. Winter Song [1],” showing they were intended as companion pieces for the seasons. Later illustrated editions included drawings by F. D. Bedford, pairing the text with pastoral springtime scenes.

Full Version

The country’s now in all its pride,
Now dressed in lovely green,
The earth with many colours dyed,
Displays a lovely scene.
Ten thousand pretty flowers appear,
To deck the little children’s hair,
Fa-la-la-la, fa-la.

The cuckoo’s picked up all the dirt.
The trees are all in bloom.
If pleasant music may divert,
Each bush affords a tune.
The pigeon sings in every grove.
And milkmaids warble songs of love.
Fa-la-la-la, fa-la.

Come out into the cowslip-meads.
The pleasant wood and spring.
And listen in the beeches’ shades
Where nightingale doth sing.
Sweet nightingale whose warbling throat,
Far, far excels my sorry note.
Fa-la-la-la, fa-la.

Meaning

Unlike the nonsense jingles common in nursery lore, Song of Spring reads more like a gentle Victorian children’s lyric. It celebrates the countryside in full bloom: green fields, flowers for children’s hair, cuckoos, pigeons, milkmaids, and the nightingale. The repeated “Fa-la-la-la” marks it as a song, meant to be sung rather than recited.

Victorian editors often blended traditional rhymes with newly written verses that fit the nursery. Song of Spring is one of these polished pastoral pieces. Its imagery—cowslip meadows, cuckoo calls, nightingales—reflects the 19th-century ideal of childhood innocence tied to nature. Grouping it with a Winter Song also shows the didactic aim: teaching children to notice and value the turning of the seasons.