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A Little Bouquet of April Poetry
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Spring is the Period
Express from God.
Among the other seasons
Himself abide,
But during March and April
None stir abroad
Without a cordial interview
With God.
Emily Dicksinson
Complete Poems # 844
ed. Thomas H. Johnson
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Northern April
O mind, beset by music never for a moment quiet,—
The wind at the flue, the wind strumming the shutter;
The soft, antiphonal speech of the doubled brook,
never for a moment quiet;
The rush of the rain against the glass,
his voice in the eaves-gutter!
Where shall I lay you to sleep, and the robins be quiet?
Lay you to sleep—and the frogs be silent in the marsh?
Crashes the sleet from the bough and the bough sighs upward,
never for a moment quiet.
April is upon us, pitiless and young and harsh.
O April, full of blood, full of breath, have pity upon us!
Pale, where the winter like a stone has been lifted away,
we emerge like yellow grass.
Be for a moment quiet, buffet us not, have pity upon us,
Till the green come back into the vein,
till the giddiness pass.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Collected Poems p. 219
ed. Norma Millay
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April
For many a flower that sleeps
The Zephyrs sigh in vain,
Till April, Christ-like, weeps
And Lazarus lives again.
John Banister Tabb
The Poetry of Father Tabb p. 326
ed. Francis A. Litz
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Blue-Butterfly Day
It is blue-butterfly day here in spring,
And with these sky-flakes down in flurry on flurry
There is more unmixed color on the wing
Than flowers will show for days unless they hurry.
But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:
And now from having ridden out desire
They lie closed over in the wind and cling
Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.
Robert Frost
Poetry p. 225
ed. Edward Connery Latham
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Song of a Second April
April this year, not otherwise
Than April of a year ago,
Is full of whispers, full of sighs,
Of dazzling mud and dingy snow;
Hepaticas that pleased you so
Are here again, and butterflies.
There rings a hammering all day,
And shingles lie about the doors;
In orchards near and far away
The grey wood-pecker taps and bores;
The men are merry at their chores,
And children earnest at their play.
The larger streams run still and deep,
Noisy and swift the small brooks run
Among the mullein stalks the sheep
Go up the hillside in the sun,
Pensively,—only you are gone,
You that alone I cared to keep.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Collected Poems p. 80
ed. Norma Millay
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Peach Bloom
A dream in fragrant silence wrought,
A blossoming of petaled thought,
A passion of these April days—
The blush of nature now betrays.
John Banister Tabb
The Poetry of Father Tabb p. 326
ed. Francis A. Litz
Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 04/06/03 07:48:34 PM
Categorized as Literary.
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