Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true —
I love April, I love you.
~~ Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
from Verses from 1929 on, 1959
The way of Spring with little steepled towns Is such a shy, transforming sorcery
Of special lights and swift, incredible crowns, That grave men wonder how such things may be.
No friendly spire, no daily-trodden way But somehow alters in the April air,
Grown dearer still, on some enchanted day, For shining garments they have come to wear.
The way the spring comes to our Town is such That something quickens in the hearts of men,
Turning them lovers at its subtle touch, Till they must lift their heads again — again —
As lovers do, with frank, adoring eyes,
Where the long street of lifted steeples lies.
~~ David Morton (1886-1957) from Ships in Harbor, and other poems, 1921
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
Capricious April! when we fain would find
A fitting emblem for inconstancy,
Thy changeful moods such emblem well supply;
For thy wild sallies sure no laws can bind,
No counsel tame. One moment, and the wind
Brings storms of sleet and "blossom-bruising hail;"
The next, not Summer breathes a softer gale,
Or looks upon us with a glance more kind.
And lo! to greet thee in thy alter'd mood,
Glad Nature hastes her fairest wreaths to bring,
Blithe daisy, nodding cowslip, and each bud
That owes allegiance to the early Spring.
May such sweet wooing chase thy frowns away,
And be thy smile as constant as 'tis gay!
~~ Rebecca Hey (1797-1867) from Recollections of the Lakes, and other poems, 1841
Far from this foreign Easter damp and chilly My soul steals to a pear-shaped plot of ground,
Where gleamed the lilac-tinted Easter lily Soft-scented in the air for yards around; Alone, without a hint of guardian leaf! Just like a fragile bell of silver rime,
It burst the tomb for freedom sweet and brief In the young pregnant year at Eastertime;
And many thought it was a sacred sign, And some called it the resurrection flower;
And I, a pagan, worshiped at its shrine, Yielding my heart unto its perfumed power.
~~ Claude McKay (1889-1948) from Harlem Shadows, 1922
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,
The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters,
The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers,
Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees,
Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark,
And dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach de Gotha
And the Stock Exchange Gazette, the Directory of Directors,
And cold the sense and lost the motive of action.
And we all go with them, into the silent funeral,
Nobody's funeral, for there is no one to bury.
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away —
Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations
And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing —
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth. You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.
IV
The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.
Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.
The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.
The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.
The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood —
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.
Across the moist beam of the cloud-rimmed sun,
The larks run up in ecstasies of Spring,
And little feathered flutes of melody,
The yellow-ammers, pipe along the hedges.
The sheep, half basking in the golden blaze,
Half shivering in the gray, engulfing shadows,
Browse on the faint-green hills; the chilly wind
Ruffles the white geese on the rippled pond.
~~ Percy MacKaye (1875-1956) from The Sistine Eve, and other poems, 1915 [Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
Photo: Skylark in flight, Midlands, England, April 2011. Courtesy Dreamstime
To a bird's high-piped preamble, Hark! a glory through the Park,
Through the saplings and the bramble Sparkling over the dripping bark,
Sunlight fell, golden-hued, Fall'n without a warning,
Kissing the caverns of the wood On an April morning.
Robin, Robin Redbreast Danced upon the turf,
In the lake the ripple's crest Mimic'd Ocean's surf.
And the branches splattered the dew Over the lush, wet ground —
Dawn only lacked of you To have its glory crowned.
In the ample stretch of heaven There was not a fleck, a streamer,
All the perfect air was given, Delicious food, to me, the dreamer;
Loaf, laze and idle The delicate dawn away, With thoughts of the bridal On a rare June day.
I sat all alone, Squirrels tufted their tails,
And silver fancies, shower-strown, I beat, as with a flail,
Shaping them now to the fluty Lyric of a bird.
Now to the rose-bud beauty Of a golden word.
Oh, what is a pleasure If It is not shared?
What the sweetest leisure When a heart's unpaired?
It is as if a ring Lacked its perfect stone —
On that dancing morning of Spring I sat there alone.
~~
James Oppenheim (1882-1932)
from Monday Morning, and other poems, 1909
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
ARGUMENT. This Æglogue is purposely intended to the honor and prayse of our most gracious sovereigne, Queene Elizabeth. The speakers herein be Hobbinoll and Thenott, two shepheardes: the which Hobbinoll, being before mentioned greatly to have loved Colin, is here set forth more largely, complayning him of that boyes great misadventure in love, whereby his mynd was alienate and withdrawen not onely from him, who moste loved him, but also from all former delightes and studies, aswell in pleasaunt pyping as conning ryming and singing, and other his laudable exercises. Whereby he taketh occasion, for proofe of his more excellencie and skill in poetrie, to recorde a songe which the sayd Colin sometime made in honor of her Majestie, whom abruptely he termeth Elysa.
THENOT. HOBBINOLL.
The. Tell me, good Hobbinoll, what garres thee greete? What! hath some wolfe thy tender lambes ytorne?
Or is thy bagpype broke, that soundes so sweete? Or art thou of thy loved lasse forlorne?
Or bene thine eyes attempred to the yeare. Quenching the gasping furrowes thirst with rayne?
Like April shoure, so stremes the trickling teares Adowne thy cheeke, to quenche thy thristye payne.
Hob. Nor thys, nor that, so muche doeth make me mourne, But for the ladde whome long I lovd so deare
Nowe loves a lasse that all his love doth scorne: He, plongd in payne, his tressed locks dooth teare.
Shepheards delights he dooth them all forsweare, Hys pleasaunt pipe, whych made us meriment,
He wylfully hath broke, and doth forbeare His wonted songs, wherein he all outwent.
The. What is he for a ladde you so lament? Ys love such pinching payne to them that prove?
And hath he skill to make so excellent, Yet hath so little skill to brydle love?
Hob. Colin thou kenst, the southerne shepheardes boye: Him Love hath wounded with a deadly darte.
Whilome on him was all my care and joye, Forcing with gyfts to winne his wanton heart.
But now from me hys madding mynd is starte, And woes the widdowes daughter of the glenne:
So nowe fayre Rosalind hath bredde hys smart, So now his frend is chaunged for a frenne.
The. But if hys ditties bene so trimly dight, I pray thee, Hobbinoll, recorde some one,
The whiles our flockes doe graze about in sight, And we close shrowded in thys shade alone.
Hob. Contented I: then will I singe his laye Of fayre Elisa, queene of shepheardes all;
Which once he made, as by a spring he laye, And tuned it unto the waters fall.
‘Ye dayntye Nymphs, that in this blessed brooke Doe bathe your brest,
Forsake your watry bowres, and hether looke, At my request.
And eke you Virgins that on Parnasse dwell,
Whence floweth Helicon, the learned well, Helpe me to blaze Her worthy praise
Which in her sexe doth all excell.
‘Of fayre Elisa be your silver song, That blessed wight:
The flowre of virgins, may shee florish long In princely plight.
For shee is Syrinx daughter without spotte,
Which Pan, the shepheards god, of her begot: So sprong her grace Of heavenly race,
No mortall blemishe may her blotte.
‘See, where she sits upon the grassie greene, (O seemely sight!)
Yclad in scarlot, like a mayden queene, And ermines white.
Upon her head a cremosin coronet,
With damaske roses and daffadillies set: Bayleaves betweene, And primroses greene,
Embellish the sweete violet.
‘Tell me, have ye seene her angelick face, Like Phœbe fayre?
Her heavenly haveour, her princely grace, Can you well compare?
The redde rose medled with the white yfere,
In either cheeke depeincten lively chere. Her modest eye, Her majestie,
Where have you seene the like, but there?
‘I sawe Phœbus thrust out his golden hedde, Upon her to gaze:
But when he sawe how broade her beames did spredde, It did him amaze.
He blusht to see another sunne belowe,
Ne durst againe his fyrye face out showe: Let him, if he dare, His brightnesse compare
With hers, to have the overthrowe.
‘Shewe thy selfe, Cynthia, with thy silver rayes, And be not abasht:
When shee the beames of her beauty displayes, O how art thou dasht!
But I will not match her with Latonaes seede;
Such follie great sorow to Niobe did breede: Now she is a stone, And makes dayly mone,
Warning all other to take heede.
‘Pan may be proud, that ever he begot Such a bellibone,
And Syrinx rejoyse, that ever was her lot To beare such an one.
Soone as my younglings cryen for the dam,
To her will I offer a milkwhite lamb: Shee is my goddesse plaine, And I her shepherds swayne,
Albee forswonck and forswatt I am.
‘I see Calliope speede her to the place, Where my goddesse shines,
And after her the other Muses trace, With their violines.
Bene they not bay braunches which they doe beare,
All for Elisa in her hand to weare? So sweetely they play, And sing all the way,
That it a heaven is to heare.
‘Lo how finely the Graces can it foote To the instrument:
They dauncen deffly, and singen soote, In their meriment.
Wants not a fourth Grace, to make the daunce even?
Let that rowme to my Lady be yeven: She shalbe a Grace, To fyll the fourth place,
And reigne with the rest in heaven.
‘And whither rennes this bevie of ladies bright, Raunged in a rowe?
They bene all Ladyes of the Lake behight, That unto her goe.
Chloris, that is the chiefest nymph of al,
Of olive braunches beares a coronall: Olives bene for peace, When wars doe surcease:
Such for a princesse bene principall.
‘Ye shepheards daughters, that dwell on the greene, Hye you there apace:
Let none come there, but that virgins bene, To adorne her grace.
And when you come whereas shee is in place,
See that your rudenesse doe not you disgrace: Binde your fillets faste, And gird in your waste,
For more finesse, with a tawdrie lace.
‘Bring hether the pincke and purple cullambine, With gelliflowres;
Bring coronations, and sops in wine, Worne of paramoures;
Strowe me the ground with daffadowndillies,
And cowslips, and kingcups, and loved lillies: The pretie pawnce, And the chevisaunce,
Shall match with the fayre flowre delice.
‘Now ryse up, Elisa, decked as thou art, In royall aray;
And now ye daintie damsells may depart Echeone her way.
I feare I have troubled your troupes to longe:
Let Dame Eliza thanke you for her song: And if you come hether When damsines I gether,
I will part them all you among.’
[Thenot] And was thilk same song of Colins owne making? Ah, foolish boy, that is with love yblent!
Great pittie is, he be in such taking, For naught caren, that bene so lewdly bent.
[Hobbinol] Sicker, I hold him for a greater fon, That loves the thing he cannot purchase.
But let us homeward, for night draweth on, And twincling starres the daylight hence chase.
~~ Edmund Spenser (1552-1599) from Complete Poetical Works, 1908
