In a somer seson, whan softe was the sonne, I shoop me into shroudes as I a sheep were, In habite an heremite unholy of werkes, Went wide in this world wondres to here.

-Langland,William
c.1377  Piers Plowman (B text), prologue, l.1^4. (shoop = got, shroudes = garments)

Dark and terrible beyond any season within my remembrance of political affairs was the day of their flight.Far darkerand moreterrible will be the dayof their return.

-1st Baron
On the defeat of the Tory Government, House of Commons, 20 Sep.

It was the winter wild While the Heaven born child All meanly wrapped in the rude manger lies; Nature in awe to him Had doffed her gaudy trim With her great Master so to sympathize; It was no season then for her To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.

-Milton,John
  'On the Morning of Christ's Nativity','The Hymn', stanza 3.

Yet once more,O ye laurels, and once more Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never-sere I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forc'd fingers rude, Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear, Compels me to disturb your season due For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.

-Milton,John
  Lycidas, opening lines.

I was promised on a time, To have reason for my rhyme; From that time unto this season, I received nor rhyme nor reason.

-Spenser, Edmund
'Lines on his Pension.'Attributed.

Will there never come a season Which shall rid us of the curse Of a prose which knows no reason And an unmelodious verse† When there stands a muzzled stripling, Mute, beside a muzzled bore: When the Rudyards cease from kipling And the Haggards Ride no more.

-Stephen,J(ames) K(enneth)
'To R K'.

For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered isgrief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

-Swinburne, Algernon Charles
  Atlanta in Calydon, chorus,'When the hounds of spring'.

Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal silence: truths that wake, To perish never: Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, Nor man nor boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterlyabolish or destroy! Hence in a season of calm weather, Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither, Can in a moment travel thither, And see the children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

-Wordsworth,William
c.1802^1803  'Ode. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood', stanza 9 (published1807).

21st Mayöagloriousday forbeauty.Iwishyoucould see how lovely our country is at this fine season.

-Wordsworth,William
  Letter toWilliam Boxall, 21 May.