Larry's Pretty Good Poetry Journal

Oh, I can help with this! This "goto" is not 毎 but 如, the stem of the adjective more commonly seen in forms like gotoshi and gotoku. So the meaning of the first two lines is "If similarity to spring was the general rule/way the world worked/etc." I can't think of a truly satisfying translation offhand, but ideally it would convey that the "world" to be evoked is more the social world than the physical one. --Matt