A Happy Easter

To All Readers and Followers of

'The Land of Lost Content'

 

Easter Week

See the land, her Easter keeping,

Rises as her Maker rose.

Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,

Burst at last from winter snows.

Earth with heaven above rejoices;

Fields and gardens hail the spring;

Shaughs and woodlands ring with voices,

While the wild birds build and sing.

You, to whom your Maker granted

Powers to those sweet birds unknown,

Use the craft by God implanted;

Use the reason, not your own.

Here, while heaven and earth rejoice,

Each his Easter tribute brings–

Work of fingers, song of voices,

Like the birds who build and sing.

Charles Kingsley

Charles Kingsley was a Victorian clergyman, novelist, and social reformer whose restless energy informed both his writing and his public life. Born in 1819, he combined a preacher’s moral urgency with a storyteller’s instinct, producing works such as The Water-Babies and Westward Ho! that blended adventure with ethical reflection. Kingsley championed sanitary reform, workers’ rights, and educational access, believing Christianity demanded practical action. His prose often carried a bracing, outdoor vitality, shaped by his love of nature and science. While some of his prejudices reflect the limitations of his time, his commitment to social improvement and imaginative engagement left a distinctive mark on nineteenth-century culture. He died in 1875, aged 55 years.

Kingsley’s poem Easter Week connects Christian resurrection imagery with the natural renewal of spring, presenting the landscape itself as a liturgical participant whose awakening mirrors Christ’s rising. In its closing exhortation, the poem shifts from observation to moral appeal. It urges humans, who are endowed with reason and creative agency, to offer their own “Easter tribute” through purposeful, harmonious work that echoes the instinctive artistry of the birds.

Note on Vocabulary: A "shaugh" is a traditional term for a thicket or a small cluster of trees, derived from the Old English sceaga.