University of Virginia Library

The Pre-Raphaelite Brothers asked Coventry Patmore to contribute to the first issue of The Germ, and he sent them "The Seasons" on the condition that his name be withheld until the appearance of his next volume. (See William Michael Rossetti's PRB Journal entry for 25 September 1849.) Dante Gabriel Rossetti apparently copied the poem in a letter to his brother and wrote "Stunning, isn't it?", and Gerard Manley Hopkins later set it to music as "The Crocus." The poem was reprinted in Tamerton Church Tower, 1854, and in Patmore's collected Poems (1st ed. 1886, George Bell and Sons) where it appears in revised form as "The Year."

For more information see the 1906 Champneys edition (London: George Bell and Sons).

his
According to the "Errata" page at the end of the third issue of the Germ, "his" should be "its."

comes
According to the "Errata" page at the end of the third issue of the Germ, "comes" should be "falls."