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.

June / Edwin Arnold

from The Twelve Months

June

Lily of June, pearl-petalled, emerald-leaved!
   A sceptre thou, a silver-studded wand
By lusty June, the Lord of Summer, waved,
   To give to blade and bud his high command.

Meneerke Bloem, Lilium 

candidum, 2012. CC BY-SA

 3,0, Wikimedia Commons.

Nay! not a sceptre, but a seated Bride,
   The white Sultana of a world of flowers.
Chosen, o'er all their passion and their pride,
   To reign with June, Lady of azure hours.

Ah, Vestal-bosomed! Thou that, all the May,
   From maidenly reserve wouldst not depart,
Till June's warm wooing won thee to display
   The golden secret hidden at thy heart:

Lay thy white heart bare to the Summer King!
   Brim thy broad chalice for him with fresh rain!
Fling to him from thy milky censers, fling
   Fine fragrances, a Bride without a stain!

Without?— look, June! thy pearly love is smutched!
   That which did wake her gentle beauty, slays;
Alas! that nothing lovely lasts, if touched
   By aught more earnest than a longing gaze.

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904), 1884

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[July]

Edwin Arnold biography

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.