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Saturday, April 30, 2016

April / Odell Shepard


April

(To Bliss Carman) 

There 's a murmur in the patient forest alleys,
There 's an elfin echo whispering through the trees,
Lonely pipes are lifted softly in the valleys . . .
All the air is filled with waking melodies.

From the crucibles of Erebus and Endor,
Flame of emerald has fallen by the rills,
And it flashes up the slope and sits in splendor
In the glory of the beauty of the hills.

Now my heart will yearn again to voice its wonder
And my song must sing again between the words
With a mutter of unutterable thunder
And a twitter of inimitable birds.

~~
Odell Shepard (1884-1967), 1903 
From A Lonely Flute, 1917

[Poem is in the public domain in the United States]

Odell Shepard biography

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