Easter-day / Henry Vaughan

Easter-day

Thou, whose sad heart, and weeping head lies low,
    Whose cloudy breast cold damps invade,
Who never feels the Sun, nor smooths thy brow,
    But sits oppressed in the shade,
                Awake, awake!
And in His Resurrection partake,
    Who, on this day (that thou might rise as He)
    Rose up, and cancelled two deaths due to thee.

Awake! awake! and like the Sun, disperse
    All mists that would usurp this day;
Where are thy Palms, thy branches, and thy verse?
    Hosanna! hark! why dost thou stay?
                Arise, arise,
And with His healing blood anoint thine eyes,
    Thy inward eyes; His blood will cure thy mind,
    Whose spittle only could restore the blind.

~~

Henry Vaughan (1622-1695)

from Silex Scintillans; or, Sacred poems

(edited by W.A. Lewis Bettany), 1905

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Henry Vaughan biography

Kay Kenyon, Easter Day on Cam Peak, 2011. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Easter / John Freeman

Easter

With Earth's arising riseth He from death,
        To all His faithful saith
                With urgent breath:

"Wake ye, out of your Winter-weary sleep!"
        And the slow pulses leap.
                No more then creep

The heavy days to night, and nights to day.
        The cloud-pack hastens away
                If He but say

Far off and faint and tremulous, "Awake!"
        How the heart's enemies quake
                When His steps shake

 
The silence they have woven as a shroud
        Upon it! Great and proud
                Alike they are bowed.

And as when lovely, radiant queenlike Spring
        Queenlike with her doth bring
                Every dear thing

Earth faints for; and the woods and gleaming meads
        Fulfilled are of their needs;
                And the lost seeds

Are found in keen green blades, and song again
        In birds, and the sweet rain
                Doth teach the plain

That gladness of the heaven-neighbouring hills;
        And the whole amazed Earth thrills
                With bliss that fills

Every hid channel and cell: — So when He rises
        In thousand sweet disguises,
                What swift surprises,

Heats, pregnant showers, flowers and rich airs He gives,
        Till the soul truly lives;
                And the fugitives —

Fear, Hate, Despair — ev'n as they fly are slain!
        O, precious ev'n the pain
                When in each vein

The leaping blood doth the old languors quicken;
        Precious, for hopes that sicken,
                To feel joys thicken

Like sudden leaves wherethrough the cool winds stir;
        Precious past gold and myrrh
                To feel Him near.

But as to some east hillside's dewless breast,
        Naked of leaf and nest,
                Spring, the loved guest,

Comes not, though all the woods her blisses cover.
        And larks but yonder hover
                The soft turf over;

Barren of Thy spring, Lord, unvisited
        Of any rains; but dead,
                Unmemoried,

My heart lies; yea, Thy spring neglects it yet.
        O, canst Thou still forget,
                My need forget?

~~
John Freeman (1880-1929)
from Fifty Poems, 1911

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

John Freeman biography

Jusben, Spring morning, 2011. CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

An Easter Carol / Christina Rossetti

An Easter Carol

            Spring bursts to-day,
For Christ is risen and all the earth's at play.

            Flash forth, thou Sun,
The rain is over and gone, its work is done.

            Winter is past,
Sweet Spring is come at last, is come at last.

            Bud, Fig and Vine,
Bud, Olive, fat with fruit and oil and wine.

            Break forth this morn
In roses, thou but yesterday a Thorn.

            Uplift thy head,
O pure white Lily through the Winter dead.

            Beside your dams
Leap and rejoice, you merry-making Lambs.

            All Herds and Flocks
Rejoice, all Beasts of thickets and of rocks.

            Sing, Creatures, sing,
Angels and Men and Birds and everything.

            All notes of Doves
Fill all our world: this is the time of loves.

~~
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
from A Pageant, and other poems, 1881

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Christina Rossetti biography

"An Easter Carol" read by Robin Shuckburgh. Courtesy The Cotswold Explorer.

Easter / Joyce Kilmer

Easter

The air is like a butterfly
        With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky
        And sings.

~~
Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)
from Trees, and other poems, 1914

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Joyce Kilmer biography

Public domain, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Good Friday / Christina Rossetti

Good Friday

Am I a stone and not a sheep,
    That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
    To number drop by drop Thy Blood's slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
    Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
    Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
    Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
    A horror of great darkness at broad noon —
I, only I.

Yet give not o'er,
    But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
    Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.

~~
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
from The Prince's Progress,  and other poems, 1866

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide.]

Christina Rossetti biography

"Good Friday" read by Jean Aked. Courtesy YouTube.

The Easter Flower / Claude McKay

The Easter Flower

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]

Claude McKay biography

"The Easter Flower" read by Narad. Courtesy The Mother & Sri Aurobindo: E-Library.

A Psalm of Spring / William Force Stead

A Psalm of Spring

 
Awake! O ye that sleep,
     For the sun and the winds awaken;
The Day-Star breathes in the East,
     And the leaves of the vine are shaken.

The world was heavy at heart,
     She abode in the ways of Sorrow,
But Winter yieldeth to Spring,
     And the long night unto the morrow.

Arise! ye that mourn,
     O ye with the sorrowful faces.
For Joy hath come to the world
     From her hidden and innermost places.

The Lord hath made thee a sign,
     Yea, God affordeth a token:
The hills that were bare are green,
     For the Lord to the hills hath spoken.

~~
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

Easter Night / Alice Meynell

Easter Night

All night had shout of men and cry
Of woeful women filled His way;
Until that noon of sombre sky
On Friday, clamour and display
Smote Him; no solitude had He,
No silence, since Gethsemane.

Public was Death; but Power, but Might,
But Life again, but Victory,
Were hushed within the dead of night,
The shutter’d dark, the secrecy.
And all alone, alone, alone
He rose again behind the stone.

~~
Alice Meynell
from A Father of Women, and other poems, 1917 

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

Alice Meynell biography

An Easter Canticle / Charles Hanson Towne

An Easter Canticle

In every trembling bud and bloom
     That cleaves the earth, a flowery sword,
I see Thee come from out the tomb,
     Thou risen Lord.

In every April wind that sings
     Down lanes that make the heart rejoice;
Yea, in the word the wood-thrush brings,
     I hear Thy voice.

Lo ! every tulip is a cup
     To hold Thy morning's brimming wine;
Drink, O my soul, the wonder up
     Is it not thine?

The great Lord God, invisible,
     Hath roused to rapture the green grass;
Through sunlit mead and dew-drenched dell
     I see Him pass.

~~
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

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

 "Easter Hymn" read by Trevor Helminski.

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

"Good Friday, 1613, Riding Westward" read by John Snelling.

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

A Russian Easter / Marya Zaturenska

A Russian Easter

In the great cathedral with blue windows,
In the great cathedral of Moscow,
They will kneel before the holy ikons.

The Mother is dressed in blue and gold,
And the Child’s eyes are of blue jewels;  
And golden and blue are the robes of the high priest.

Natasha will be there in a scarlet cloak,
And Irena’s gown will be embroidered in crimson.
Sergei will be there, and Igor
Will gaze with mystic Slav-eyes at the gold altar.

They will weep before the altar for their sins;
They will beat their breasts and pray for pardon;
They will arise shrived and forgiven!

When the priest unlooses the tiny white doves —
They will weep for joy.      

All will arise and embrace one another,
Crying, “Hail, brother, hail!”—
Crying, “Hail, sister, hail!”

Christ is arisen, Christ is arisen! Christ
Has arisen from his grave!      

Igor will chant sonorously,
“Peace and brotherhood and love
Have arisen with the white Christ!”

All will take up the cry
Peace and brotherhood and love!      

Let there be peace and love
Since Christ is arisen, Christ is arisen,
Christ is arisen from the dead!

Irena’s lover will kiss her on the lips,
Wild with the love of God.    
Natasha’s lover will kiss her forehead
Reverently as the hands of the high priest.

But I shall be alone weeping:
I shall weep remembering the blue cathedral;
I shall be sad in a strange country,    
Thinking of Igor, Natasha and Sergei,
Irena, and the singing multitude.

~~
Marya Zaturenska (1902-1982)
from Poetry, April 1920

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

Marya Zaturenska biography

Yuri D.K., St. Basil's  Cathedral, Moscow, 2025. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Spring's Sacrament / Harold E. Goad

Spring's Sacrament

'Lift up your hearts!’ The holy dews
    Asperge the woodland throng;
Dawn after dawn the lark renews
    His miracle of song;
While taper-like the crocus pricks
    Athwart the yearning sod;
The primrose lifts his golden pyx,
    And God looks forth to God.

The symbols blind, the visions fail,
    Our souls strain out to Thee;
Within the leaf, the light, the veil,
    Is Thy Felicity.
O Heart of all the world’s desire,
    Breathe from around, above,
The mystic kiss of Fire to fire
    That Love will yield to love!

~~
Harold E. Goad (1878-1956)
from the Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse, 1917

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

Harold E. Goad biography

Angel Standing in the Sun / AE Reiff

Angel Standing in the Sun

It came about a sun all blazing bright

had showered gold into the heart of man,

as clouds transparent sprung with golden light

like wings of angel’s gold through blood then ran.

And shining out in glory still like light

a being light-radiant of golden man,

whose living passion like a redding sun,

with bright and fragrant flames of gold had run.

To you in whom all gold has been perfected,

First Begotten of the fire and flood,

My heart is raised to your sole light protected,

Blaze there thou Dayman in the fiery blood.

My thought is ever sprung from one desire,

That please you to burn sole within this fire.

~~
AE Reiff, 1972

from The True Light that Lights, 2020

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

AE Reiff biography

Easter Song / Francis Sherman

Easter Song

Maidens, awake! For Christ is born again!
And let your feet disdain
The paths whereby of late they have been led.
Now Death itself is dead,
And Love hath birth,
And all things mournful find no place on earth.

This morn ye all must go another way
Than ye went yesterday.
Not with sad faces shall ye silent go
Where He hath suffered so;
But where there be
Full many flowers shall ye wend joyfully.

Moreover, too, ye must be clad in white,
As if the ended night
Were but your bridal-morn’s foreshadowing.
And ye must also sing
In angel-wise:
So shall ye be most worthy in His eyes.

Maidens, arise! I know where many flowers
Have grown these many hours
To make more perfect this glad Easter-day;
Where tall white lilies sway
On slender stem,
Waiting for you to come and garner them;

Where banks of mayflowers are, all pink and white,
Which will Him well delight;
And yellow buttercups, and growing grass
Through which the Spring winds pass;
And mosses wet,
Well strown with many a new-born violet.

All these and every other flower are here.
Will ye not draw anear
And gather them for Him, and in His name,
Whom all men now proclaim
Their living King?
Behold how all these wait your harvesting!

Moreover, see the darkness of His house!
Think ye that He allows
Such glory of glad color and perfume,
But to destroy the gloom
That hath held fast
His altar-place these many days gone past?

For this alone these blossoms had their birth,―
To show His perfect worth!
Therefore, O Maidens, ye must go apace
To that strange garden-place
And gather all
These living flowers for His high festival. [page 39]

For now hath come the long-desirèd day,
Wherein Love hath full sway!
Open the gates, O ye who guard His home,
His handmaidens are come!
Open them wide,
That all may enter in this Easter-tide!

Then, maidens, come, with song and lute-playing,
And all your wild flowers bring
And strew them on His altar; while the sun ―
Seeing what hath been done ―
Shines strong once more,
Knowing that Death hath Christ for conqueror.

~~~
Francis Sherman (1871-1926)
from Matins, 1896

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

Francis Sherman biography

Easter Ode / Paul Laurence Dunbar

Easter Ode

To the cold, dark grave they go
Silently and sad and slow,
From the light of happy skies
And the glance of mortal eyes.
In their beds the violets spring,
And the brook flows murmuring;
But at eve the violets die,
And the brook in sand runs dry.

In the rosy, blushing morn,
See, the smiling babe is born;
For a day it lives, and then
Breathes its short life out again.
And anon gaunt-visaged Death,
With his keen and icy breath,
Bloweth out the vital fire
In the hoary-headed sire.

Heeding not the children's wail,
Fathers droop and mothers fail;
Sinking sadly from each other,
Sister parts from loving brother.
All the land is filled with wailing,
Sounds of mourning garments trailing,
With their sad portent imbued,
Making melody subdued.

But in all this depth of woe
This consoling truth we know:
There will come a time of rain,
And the brook will flow again;
Where the violet fell, 'twill grow,
When the sun has chased the snow.
See in this the lesson plain,
Mortal man shall rise again.

Well the prophecy was kept;
Christ "first fruit of them that slept"
Rose with vic'try-circled brow;
So, believing one, shalt thou.
Ah! but there shall come a day
When, unhampered by this clay,
Souls shall rise to life newborn
On that resurrection morn.

~~
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)
from Oak and Ivy, 1893

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Paul Laurence Dunbar biography

Easter Evening / James Church Alvord

Easter Evening

Walking through woodlands and oncoming night
I saw His hair stream in the sky-line’s red,
I heard His footsteps on the path which led
Out from the naked trees; while golden light
Shook from His seamless robe, that, rimpling, slight  
As woof of dream-stuff, flamed across the bed
Of some low-gurgling brook. He was not dead —
His risen presence was a world’s delight.

It was the magic of a night too fleet
That filled the valley with a foam of mist;    
The scorch of cloud-banks that the sun still kissed,
And crunch of crinkled leaves beneath my feet.
I’d offer every breath I’ve yet to breathe,
Just to believe, O Master — to believe!

~~
James Church Alvord
from Poetry, April 1917

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

James Church Alvord biography

The Branch / AE Reiff

The Branch

When

the Lord of All

descended into flesh,

came through the

 million worlds

into the one

of mercy,

wisdom,

beauty,

love,

unlike the prism that divides the ray,

undiffused, he came into the body's clay,

the Son

of the

Divine

Wisdom,

the Son, the

Incarnate

Redeemer.

Our world

has been

recovered

by his being

no extra-

terrestrial

 intelligence;

his human body

shaped it to a tree 

that roots in wisdom

but whose beauty's trunk

to the earth sphere a branch extended,

on that tree the Lord Beauteous hung suspended,

and then we were enabled to receive him.

~~
AE Reiff, 2016

from The True Light that Lights, 2020

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

AE Reiff biography