At this blossoming time of year, poets and philosophers may find nature an elusive lover. As Pierre Hadot shows in The Veil of Isis (Harvard, 400 pages, $29.95), it started with Heraclitus (c. 540-475 BCE), whose enigma “nature loves to hide” resounds through the ages. Again and again sparks fly as Hadot reveals the enduring fascination of nature’s mystery. A rare miss is his too-brief look at the Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu, who could have helped him defend the goddess from Heidegger’s lust for being, which he smartly juxtaposes to Wittgenstein’s openness to mystery.

Recent books of poems show evidence of increasing respect for nature.

Charles Wright (winner of this year’s Griffin Prize), is in good form in Littlefoot: A Poem (FSG, 91 pages, $23). His long open verse lines mix genres and sources with seeming effortlessness, but he never stops thinking. “What does it profit us to say / The stiff new bristles of the spruce tree / Glisten like bottle brushes after the rain shower?” In Wright’s poems, the mysteries of consciousness interface with the mysteries of natural beauty, and the music of the whole often leaves a lump in the throat.

Equally powerful are Geoffrey Hill’s new poems in without title (Yale, 82 pages, $16). Hill is Bach to Wright’s Brahms. In “Broken Hierarchies,” we read: “the holding burden of a wisteria / drape and drape, the sodden / copia of all things flashing and drying.” In this book, Hill’s mix is prodigal and worldly, his characteristic allusiveness buoyed by a new lightness — a superb outing.

Few poets have lavished so much love on their local landscapes as the Irish poet Michael Longley. Dip anywhere into his Collected Poems (Wake Forest, 346 pages, $18.95): “The spring tide has ferried jelly fish / To the end of the lane, pinks, purples, / Wet flowers beside the floating cow-pats” (from “Spring Tide”). Longley’s seeming spontaneity hides deep echoes of world poetry, from Greeks to Japanese. Take this Greek fragment: “my lost lamb lovelier than all the wool” — that’s the whole poem titled “Lost.” Longley has proved an enduring and fructifying presence.

Just how poets and readers participate in nature is one of the themes elevating Robert Hass’ columns to the collectible status. Don’t miss Now & Then: The Poet’s Choice Columns, 1997-2000 (Shoemaker and Hoard, 301 pages, $26).