Spring Cryptogram

Crack a coded line about spring on screen, or print it with the answer key on a second page.

Spring Cryptogram

Name Date

Every letter stands for another letter, and no letter stands for itself. Work out the code to read the message.

2 of 21 letters filled in

,.

Solve it to see who said it.

Type a guess in any box and every box with the same code letter fills in. Arrow keys move between boxes.

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Letters given at the start

0 of 48 quotes solved

Keep track of the code here:

CodeABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Letter

Answer key

He began to dig again, driving his spade deep into the rich black garden soil while the robin hopped about very busily employed.

Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden.

CodeABDEFGIJKMNOQRSTVWXYZ
LetterWAOIUHEKLYMCRPVNTGDBS

Next step Unscramble spring wordsPut your own spring message in code

All 48 quotes

Rain and Thaw 11

  • April showers bring forth May flowers Traditional English proverb.
  • Dear March, come in! How glad I am! I looked for you before. Emily Dickinson, To March.
  • In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four-and-twenty hours. Mark Twain, The Weather, in Mark Twain's Speeches. He is joking about New England.
  • It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine, and things pushing up and working under the earth Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden. Mary tells Colin what spring is like.
  • Like an army defeated the snow hath retreated, and now doth fare ill on the top of the bare hill William Wordsworth, Written in March. The last snow is melting on the hilltop.
  • March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb Traditional English proverb. The month starts stormy and ends mild.
  • The rain is raining all around, it falls on field and tree, it rains on the umbrellas here, and on the ships at sea. Robert Louis Stevenson, Rain, in A Child's Garden of Verses.
Show all 48 quotes (41 more)

Rain and Thaw, continued

  • The sinking sound of melting snow is heard in all dells, and the ice dissolves apace in the ponds. Henry David Thoreau, Walden. Apace means quickly.
  • Small clouds are sailing, blue sky prevailing; the rain is over and gone! William Wordsworth, Written in March.
  • There is but one May in the year, and sometimes May is wet and cold; there is but one May in the year before the year grows old. Christina Rossetti, Sing-Song.
  • This is the frost coming out of the ground; this is Spring. Henry David Thoreau, Walden.

Flowers and Buds 11

  • The alder by the river shakes out her powdery curls; the willow buds in silver for little boys and girls. Celia Thaxter, Spring.
  • Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle in the milky way, they stretched in never-ending line along the margin of a bay William Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud. They are daffodils.
  • Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, fringing the dusty road with harmless gold James Russell Lowell, To the Dandelion.
  • Growing in the vale by the uplands hilly, growing straight and frail, Lady Daffadowndilly. Christina Rossetti, Sing-Song. Daffadowndilly is a poetic name for the daffodil.
  • I wonder if the sap is stirring yet, if wintry birds are dreaming of a mate, if frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun and crocus fires are kindling one by one Christina Rossetti, The First Spring Day.
  • If you watched long enough, he declared, you could see buds unsheath themselves. Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden.
  • Robins in the tree-top, blossoms in the grass, green things a-growing everywhere you pass Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Marjorie's Almanac.
  • Ten thousand saw I at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance. William Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.
  • There were flowering cherry-trees near and apple-trees whose buds were pink and white, and here and there one had burst open wide. Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden.
  • When daisies pied and violets blue and lady-smocks all silver-white and cuckoo-buds of yellow hue do paint the meadows with delight William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost. Pied means of two or more colors.
  • Yes, they are tiny growing things and they might be crocuses or snowdrops or daffodils Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden.

Birds 11

  • Birds all the sunny day flutter and quarrel here in the arbour-like tent of the laurel. Robert Louis Stevenson, Nest Eggs, in A Child's Garden of Verses.
  • The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than ever! Henry David Thoreau, Walden.
  • Here in the fork the brown nest is seated; four little blue eggs the mother keeps heated. Robert Louis Stevenson, Nest Eggs, in A Child's Garden of Verses.
  • Merrily swinging on brier and weed, near to the nest of his little dame, over the mountain-side or mead, Robert of Lincoln is telling his name William Cullen Bryant, Robert of Lincoln. The bird is a bobolink; a mead is a meadow.
  • Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off—and they are nearly always doing it. Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden.
  • Oh, to be in England now that April's there Robert Browning, Home Thoughts, from Abroad. The first lines.
  • Sound the flute! Now it's mute! Birds delight, day and night, nightingale, in the dale, lark in sky,—merrily, merrily, merrily to welcome in the year. William Blake, Spring, in Songs of Innocence.
  • Summer is coming, summer is coming, I know it, I know it, I know it. Light again, leaf again, life again, love again Alfred Tennyson, The Throstle. A throstle is a song thrush; these are the words of its song.
  • That's the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over Robert Browning, Home Thoughts, from Abroad.
  • While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough in England—now! Robert Browning, Home Thoughts, from Abroad. A chaffinch is a small finch.
  • Wrens and robins in the hedge, wrens and robins here and there; building, perching, pecking, fluttering, everywhere! Christina Rossetti, Sing-Song.

The Garden 7

  • All the names I know from nurse: Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse, Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock, and the Lady Hollyhock. Robert Louis Stevenson, The Flowers, in A Child's Garden of Verses. All five are garden or wayside plants.
  • And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles. Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden.
  • The gardener does not love to talk, he makes me keep the gravel walk; and when he puts his tools away, he locks the door and takes the key. Robert Louis Stevenson, The Gardener, in A Child's Garden of Verses.
  • He began to dig again, driving his spade deep into the rich black garden soil while the robin hopped about very busily employed. Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden.
  • Mistress Mary always felt that however many years she lived she should never forget that first morning when her garden began to grow. Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden.
  • The sun could get at them and warm them, and when the rain came down it could reach them at once, so they began to feel very much alive. Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden. Mary has weeded round the bulbs.
  • They are working in the earth now—pushing up pale green points because the spring is coming. Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden. The green points are the tips of bulbs.

Spring Arrives 8

  • A frisky lamb and a frisky child playing their pranks in a cowslip meadow Christina Rossetti, Sing-Song. A cowslip is a low plant with yellow flowers.
  • And the frogs pipe in chorus, "It is spring! It is spring!" Celia Thaxter, Wild Geese.
  • The Cock is crowing, the stream is flowing, the small birds twitter, the lake doth glitter, the green field sleeps in the sun William Wordsworth, Written in March.
  • On the grassy banks lambkins at their pranks; woolly sisters, woolly brothers jumping off their feet while their woolly mothers watch by them and bleat. Christina Rossetti, Sing-Song.
  • One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in. Henry David Thoreau, Walden.
  • Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king; then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring, cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing Thomas Nashe, Spring.
  • The wild wind blows, the sun shines, the birds sing loud, the blue, blue sky is flecked with fleecy dappled cloud Celia Thaxter, Wild Geese. Dappled means spotted.
  • The year's at the spring, and day's at the morn; morning's at seven; the hill-side's dew-pearled; the lark's on the wing; the snail's on the thorn Robert Browning, Pippa Passes.

How this list was compiled: Every line was matched word for word on 2026-09-30 against the Project Gutenberg plain-text edition it comes from (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/N, where N is): 25609 Stevenson, A Child's Garden of Verses; 2621 The Home Book of Verse, volume 3; 3188 Mark Twain's Speeches; 113 Burnett, The Secret Garden; 205 Thoreau, Walden; 76703 Rossetti, Sing-Song; 12242 Dickinson, Poems, Three Series; 13310 Lowell, Complete Poetical Works; 19188 Rossetti, Poems; 22922 The Posy Ring; 100 Shakespeare, Complete Works; 1934 Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience. The two proverbs were matched the same day against Wikipedia's List of proverbial phrases (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proverbial_phrases). Verse is printed as running text with line-opening capitals lowered. Every named author died before 1929; the years were read from the Project Gutenberg catalog pages, the dates The Home Book of Verse prints under each poem, or Wikipedia. The one-line notes are our own. Licence: own work

How it works

Each spring cryptogram hides a line about the season from a poem, a story or a proverb: rain and thaw, the first flowers, nesting birds, a garden waking up. Two letters are filled in for you.

Read the full guide

Five lists of spring lines

Each puzzle is one line from five lists. Rain and Thaw has two proverbs and Mark Twain counting kinds of weather. Flowers and Buds has daffodils tossing their heads in sprightly dance. Birds has a thrush that sings each song twice over. The Garden is mostly The Secret Garden, and Spring Arrives has lambs, frogs and the lark on the wing.

Where to start

A code letter standing alone must be A or I. Spring poets repeat themselves: Rossetti writes wrens and robins twice in one line, and Tennyson's thrush says I know it three times. Words that come back in the same code are your way in.

  • Not the line you hoped for? Show answer ends it, and New puzzle deals the next.
  • Stevenson's Rain is four short clauses about one thing. Solve RAIN once and it opens RAINING and RAINS.

Questions and answers

Can I print a spring cryptogram with its answer?

Yes. Print puzzle makes a sheet with room for a name and date, the code, and an A to Z tracker grid. The key is a second page unless Print the answer key too, under More options after a solve, is unticked.

Where do the spring lines come from?

From authors who died before 1929, among them Wordsworth, Robert Louis Stevenson, Christina Rossetti, Browning, Thoreau and Frances Hodgson Burnett, plus two old proverbs. Each line was matched word for word against the text it comes from on 30 September 2026.

Are there Easter lines?

No. The page is about the season itself: rain, flowers, birds and gardens. It names no holiday, so it suits any class from the thaw to the last week of May.

Why does the proverb say bring forth May flowers?

That is how Wikipedia's list of proverbial phrases prints it, and every line here keeps the wording of the text it was checked against. If you know the saying without forth, expect one more word in the puzzle.

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