Sweet Wild April / William Force Stead

Sweet Wild April

O sweet wild April
     Came over the hills,
He skipped with the winds
     And he tripped with the rills;
His raiment was all
Of the daffodils.
          Sing hi, 
          Sing hey, 
          Sing ho! 

O sweet wild April
     Came down the lea,
Dancing along
     With his sisters three,
Carnation, and Rose,
     And tall Lily.
          Sing hi, 
          Sing hey, 
          Sing ho! 

O sweet wild April
     On pastoral quill
Came piping in moonlight
     By hollow and hill,
In starlight at midnight
     By dingle and rill.
          Sing hi, 
          Sing hey, 
          Sing ho! 

Where sweet wild April
     His melody played,
Trooped Cowslip and Primrose;
     And Iris the maid,
And silver Narcissus,
     A star in the shade.
          Sing hi, 
          Sing hey, 
          Sing ho! 

When sweet wild April
     Dipped down the dale.
Pale Cuckoo-pint brightened
     And Windflower frail,
And Whitethorn, the wood-bride.
     In virginal veil.
          Sing hi, 
          Sing hey, 
          Sing ho! 

When sweet wild April
     Through deep woods pressed.
Sang Cuckoo above him
     And Lark on his crest,
And Philomel fluttered
     Close under his breast.
          Sing hi, 
          Sing hey, 
          Sing ho! 

O sweet wild April,
     Wherever you went.
The bondage of winter
     Was broken and rent;
Sank elfin Ice-City
     And Frost-Goblin's tent.
          Sing hi, 
          Sing hey, 
          Sing ho! 

Yet sweet wild April,
     The blythe, the brave,
Fell asleep in the fields
By a windless wave;
And Jack-in-the-Pulpit
Preached over his grave.
          Sing hi, 
          Sing hey, 
          Sing ho! 

O sweet wild April,
Farewell to thee!
And a deep sweet sleep
To thy Sisters three,—
Carnation, and Rose,
And tall Lily.
          Sing hi, 
          Sing hey, 
          Sing ho! 

~~
William Force Stead (1884-1967)
from Windflowers: A book of lyrics, 1911

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

William Force Stead biography

The Lover in April / Charles Hanson Towne

The Lover In April 

Thou hast come back to me!
(Thou who didst die a year ago,
And slept so many days beneath the snow)
Thou hast come back to me!
Now that the buds break on the hawthorn-tree,
And the old gladness of the earth revives,
Thou hast come back to me
In the dear hyacinth and white anemone.

The Spring's great resurrection is thine own!
This fragrance of young blossoms in thy breath;
This silence is thy spiritual tread —
Thou art no longer dead!
Who is it, dear, that saith
Thy body is in the bondage of strong Death?
Nay, from the darkness, on the light winds blown,
Thou hast come back to me
In the dear hyacinth and white anemone!

~~
Charles Hanson Towne (1877-1949) 
from The Quiet Singer, and other poems, 1908

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Charles Hanson Towne biography

Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude / Thomas Gray

Ode 
on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude

Now the golden Morn aloft
  Waves her dew-bespangled wing,
With vermeil cheek and whisper soft
  She woos the tardy Spring:
Till April starts, and calls around  
The sleeping fragrance from the ground,
And lightly o’er the living scene
Scatters his freshest, tenderest green.

New-born flocks, in rustic dance,
  Frisking ply their feeble feet;
Forgetful of their wintry trance
  The birds his presence greet:
But chief, the sky-lark warbles high
His trembling thrilling ecstasy;
And lessening from the dazzled sight,
Melts into air and liquid light.

Rise, my soul! on wings of fire,
  Rise the rapt'rous choir among;
Hark! 'tis Nature strikes the lyre,
  And leads the general song:

Yesterday the sullen year
  Saw the snowy whirlwind fly;
Mute was the music of the air,
  The herd stood drooping by;
Their raptures now that wildly flow
No yesterday nor morrow know;
’Tis Man alone that joy descries
With forward and reverted eyes.

Smiles on past Misfortune’s brow
  Soft Reflection’s hand can trace,
And o’er the cheek of Sorrow throw
  A melancholy grace;
While Hope prolongs our happier hour,
Or deepest shades, that dimly lour
And blacken round our weary way,
Gilds with a gleam of distant day.

Still, where rosy Pleasure leads,
  See a kindred Grief pursue;
Behind the steps that Misery treads
  Approaching Comfort view:
The hues of bliss more brightly glow
Chastised by sabler tints of woe,
And blended form, with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of life.    

See the wretch that long has tost
  On the thorny bed of pain,
At length repair his vigour lost
  And breathe and walk again:
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise.

Humble Quiet builds her cell,
  Near the source whence Pleasure flows;
She eyes the clear crystalline well,
  And tastes it as it goes.

~~
Thomas Gray (1716-1771)
from Poems, 1775

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Thomas Gray biography

An April Interlude - 1917 / Bernard Freeman Trotter

An April Interlude - 1917

April snow agleam in the stubble,
     Melting to brown on the new-ploughed fields,
April sunshine, and swift cloud-shadows
     Racing to spy what the season yields
Over the hills and far away:
Heigh! and ho! for an April day!
     Hoofs on the highroad: Ride—tr-r—ot!
     Spring's in the wind, and war's forgot,
As we go riding through Picardy.

Up by a wood where a brown hawk hovers,
     Down through a village with white-washed walls,
A wooden bridge and a mill-wheel turning,
     And a little stream that sports and brawls
Into the valley and far away:
Heigh! and ho! for an April day!
     Children and old men stop to stare 
     At the clattering horsemen from Angleterre,
As we go riding through Picardy.

On by the unkempt hedges, budding,
     On by the Chateau gates flung wide.
Where is the man who should trim the garden?
Where are the youths of this country-side?—
Over the hills and far away
Is war, red war, this April day.
     So for the moment we pay our debt 
     To the cause on which our faith is set,
As we go riding through Picardy.

Then the hiss of the spurting gravel,
     Then the tang of the wind on the face,
Then the splash of the hoof-deep puddle,
     Spirit of April setting the pace
Over the hills and far away:
Heigh! and ho! for an April day!
     Heigh! for a ringing: Ride—tr-r—ot!
     Ho!—of war we've never a thought
As we go riding through Picardy.

~~
Bernard Freeman Trotter (1890-1917), 1917
from A Canadian Twilight, 1917 

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Bernard Freeman Trotter biography

Easter / Edmund Spenser

from Amoretti:

LXVIII

Most glorious Lord of lyfe that on this day
     didst make Thy triumph over death and sin;
     and having harow'd hell didst bring away
     captivity thence captive us to win:
This joyous day, deare Lord, with joy begin,
     and grant that we, for whom thou diddest dye
     being with Thy deare blood clene washt from sin,
     may live for ever in felicity:
And that Thy love we weighing worthily,
     may likewise love thee for the same againe;
     and for Thy sake that all lyke deare didst buy,
     with love may one another entertayne.
So let us love, deare Love, lyke as we ought,
     love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

~~
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)
from Amoretti and Epithalamion, 1595

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edmund Spenser biography

Easter Hymn / A.E. Housman

Easter Hymn

If in that Syrian garden, ages slain,
You sleep, and know not you are dead in vain,
Nor even in dreams behold how dark and bright
Ascends in smoke and fire by day and night
The hate you died to quench and could but fan,
Sleep well and see no morning, son of man.

But if, the grave rent and the stone rolled by,
At the right hand of majesty on high
You sit, and sitting so remember yet
Your tears, your agony and bloody sweat,
Your cross and passion and the life you gave,
Bow hither out of heaven and see and save.

~~
A.E. Housman (1859-1936)
from More Poems, 1936

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the European Union]

A.E. Housman biography

Good Friday, 1613, Riding Westward / John Donne

Good Friday, 1613, Riding Westward

Let man’s soul be a sphere, and then, in this,
Th' intelligence that moves, devotion is;
And as the other spheres, by being grown
Subject to foreign motion, lose their own,
And being by others hurried every day,  
Scarce in a year their natural form obey;
Pleasure or business, so, our souls admit
For their first mover, and are whirl’d by it.
Hence is't, that I am carried towards the west,
This day, when my soul's form bends to the East.
There I should see a Sun by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget.
But that Christ on His cross did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for me.
Who sees God’s face, that is self-life, must die;
What a death were it then to see God die?
It made His own lieutenant, Nature, shrink,
It made His footstool crack, and the sun wink.
Could I behold those hands, which span the poles
And tune all spheres at once, pierced with those holes?
Could I behold that endless height, which is
Zenith to us and our antipodes,
Humbled below us? or that blood, which is
The seat of all our souls, if not of His,
Made dirt of dust, or that flesh which was worn
By God for His apparel, ragg’d and torn?
If on these things I durst not look, durst I
On His distressed Mother cast mine eye,
Who was God’s partner here, and furnish’d thus
Half of that sacrifice which ransom’d us?
Though these things as I ride be from mine eye,
They’re present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them; and Thou look'st towards me,
O Saviour, as Thou hang'st upon the tree.
I turn my back to Thee but to receive
Corrections till Thy mercies bid Thee leave.
O think me worth Thine anger, punish me,
Burn off my rust, and my deformity;      
Restore Thine image, so much, by Thy grace,
That Thou mayst know me, and I’ll turn my face.

~~
John Donne (1572-1631)
From Poems, 1896

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

John Donne biography

The Plant / AE Reiff

The Plant

I live among you though you know me not,
But knowledge came to me found out of doubt,
Hear, see me on my stem, I have come out,
For now I rise and bloom while you’re about.
I could but now receive you for I grow
Nearer to where my Lord his veins let flow,
He has me and he will not let me go.
I am undone yet he shall be my Lord,
He has into my life his water poured
That I bleed with him for he loves the world.
He loves the world with his own shed blood,
He has given me the way that I should go,
He has taken away all of my will and He would
That I scatter these seeds he would sow.

~~

AE Reiff

from The True Light that Lights, 2020

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

AE Reiff biography

Avril, la Douce Esperance / Thomas Ashe

Avril, la Douce Esperance

Come, spring, and bring the flowers again,
And plant the primrose by the brook:
Let love not languish at a look;
For she may grow more gentle then,
When springtime brings the flowers again.

Come, April, spreading kinder skies,
And make the leaves with sunshine laugh:
Perchance my love will learn to have
A softer tremor in her eyes,
When April comes with kinder skies.

Come, June, bring splendour of the rose;
Come, bring delight of tint and scent:
My darling will perhaps relent
And love me then, as once, - who knows?
When June brings splendour of the rose.

~~
Thomas Ashe (1836-1889)
from Poems, 1891

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Thomas Ashe biography

April's Fool / John McClure

April's Fool

I loved a lady once —
     Tweedle-dum, tweedle-di!
Ah, what a merry dunce
     In the mad world was I.

Love was a fairyland.
     Life was to me
All playing of fiddles
     And minstrelsy.

All the mad world was fair,
     All the trees green,
I was a jester there
     To a gay queen.

I was a knight-at-arms,
     I was a king,
I would brave death for her,
     Caper or sing.

Tweedle-dum, tweedle-di!
What a mad fool was I!

~~
John McClure (1893-1956)
from Airs and Ballads, 1918

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

John McClure biography

Penny's Top 20 / March 2020

Penny's Top 20
The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in March 2020:

  1.   Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
  2.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens

  3.  The Key, George J. Dance

  4.  Sick and sullen and sad the slow days go, H.C. Beeching
  5.  Over and Over Again, Antti
  6.  When the Hounds of Spring, A.C. Swinburne
  7.  The Magician, Lilian Leveridge
  8.  Winter Rain, Christina Rossetti
  9.  Autumn, T.E. Hulme
10.  A March Wind, Francis Sherman

11.  The Sun this March, Wallace Stevens
12.  The Mocking, Goodridge MacDonald
13.  1915: The Trenches, Conrad Aiken
14.  Jonah, AE Reiff
15.  The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff
16.  Winter Heat, Will Dockery
17.  Crepuscule, E.E. Cummings
18.  Winter Song, Elizabeth Tollet
19.  Once Like a Light, AE Reiff

20. Wind-blown, Muna Lee

Source: Blogger, "Stats"