Does spring bring hope or frustration?

Spring. Perhaps it's the best season, for it represents hope and a better future. Indeed, Eliot has said, "April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain."

But more than a century before him, Shelley raised hopes for a better future for humankind by telling us that, "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"

The winter that just gave way to spring in Beijing despite being one of the mildest in recent years did drive our "dead thoughts over the universe, like withered leaves to quicken a new birth". We may not believe in the west wind's "trumpet of a prophecy", but there is little doubt that, as humans, we want our future to be better.