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