Amid life’s uncertainties, one thing is constant: The seasons will always change. The wheel of the year — the gentle flow from spring to winter and back again — has been honored for centuries, whether by a farming cycle, people worshipping the earth, or just the slow joy of watching the weather change.

As we move from brisk and chilly to sun and fun, the transition of one season to another can feel like a rebirth, an entry into a world we once forgot but ached to remember. The first day you feel each new season inevitably brings a smile to your face; in a way, it’s like a chance to say hello to an old friend who has come to visit once more.

Writers, artists, and musicians have noticed this special feeling and paid tribute to it in their works. No matter what time of year it is, these short odes to each season will leave you pining for the crisp air and fiery colors of fall, the warm embrace of summer, the blooms and bird songs of spring, or the brisk breath of winter.

Winter

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.
– John Steinbeck, "Travels with Charley: In Search of America"

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.
– Edith Sitwell, "I Live Under a Black Sun"

It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.
– John Burroughs, "Winter Sunshine"

Spring

Listen, can you hear it? Spring's sweet cantata. The strains of grass pushing through the snow. The song of buds swelling on the vine. The tender timpani of a baby robin's heart. Spring.
– Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, "Northern Exposure"

Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king.
– Thomas Nashe, "Summer's Last Will and Testament"

Come with me into the woods. Where spring is advancing, as it does, no matter what, not being singular or particular, but one of the forever gifts, and certainly visible.
– Mary Oliver, "Bazougey"

Summer

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Great Gatsby"

Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.
– Henry James, "An International Episode"

I love how summer just wraps its arms around you like a warm blanket.
– Kelle Elmore, "Magic in the Backyard"

Fall

As long as autumn lasts, I shall not have hands, canvas and colors enough to paint the beautiful things I see.
– Vincent Van Gogh, letter to Theo van Gogh

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
– Albert Camus, "The Misunderstanding" ("Le Malentendu")

Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree.
— Emily Brontë, "Fall, Leaves, Fall"

Photo credit: Baraa Jalahej/ Unsplash