April / Ernest Howard Crosby

April

See the apple-orchard
Bathing head and shoulders
In the dazzling pea-green
Rising-tide of April;
While an ancient pear tree
In the kitchen garden
Spreads the rugged outline
Of its jet-black branches
Underneath a drifted
Mass of snowy blossoms.
Tinted is the herbage
With unnumbered violets.
Tiny sky-blue butterflies
Like uprooted flowrets
Flirt among the sunbeams.
Hickory-tips are bursting
Into clustering parachutes.
On the white-oak saplings
Pink and folded leaflets
Now uncurl their tendrils
Like the opening iingers
Of soft new-born babies.
Listen, from the marshes
Multitudinous frog notes
Ringing out metallic
Like the ghosts of sleigh-bells;
While a red-winged blackbird,
Eager to be mating,
From a bare twig bugles,
"O-kal-ee,— it's April!"

~~
Ernest Howard Crosby (1856-1907)
from Broad-cast, 1905

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Ernest Howard Crosby biography

Spring Longings / Francis W. Bourdillon

Spring Longings

If I might be, for but one April tide,
     The blackbird, poet laureate to Queen Spring,
     And have such music given my lips, to sing
Among the woodlands, o'er the meadows wide,
How in my song were my queen deified
     In notes of deathless love, that should enring
     My perch with peering listeners, and bring
Spring memories, when Spring's delights had died!

For now in vain I sigh for such a voice,
     To utter aught of all the joys I take,
          Queen Spring, from all thy wonders,– flowers, and leaves,
And airs of heaven, and scents; that bid rejoice
     The heart, that weeps it knows not why, and wake
          A love past passion on the lengthening eves.

~~
Francis W. Bourdillon (1852-1921)
from Among the Flowers, and other poems, 1878

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

Francis W. Bourdillon biography

Love at Easter / Katharine Tynan

Love at Easter

Sing to the Lord a new song!
     Because the Spring comes newly.
And every slender sapling
     Has budded green and red.
Sing to the Lord a new song!
     The skylark sings it truly,
Since all in dewy April
     His love and he are wed.

Sing to the Lord a new song!
     For every bird's a lover,
And o'er the purple furrows
     The green spears nod and wave.
Sing to the Lord a new song!
     Since Lenten fasts are over.
And Easter 's gone in glory.
     And Christ has left the grave.

Sing to the Lord a new song!
     A song of love and wedding,
For every bird is building
     His nest in bower and tree.
Sing to the Lord a new song!
     The tufts of soft wool spreading
Where a brown wife and babies
     This April-tide shall be.

~~
Katharine Tynan (1861-1931)
from Poems, 1901

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

Katharine Tynan biography

Easter / Katharine Tynan

Easter

Bring flowers to strew His way,
Yea, sing, make holiday;
Bid young lambs leap,
And earth laugh after sleep.

For now He cometh forth
Winter flies to the north,
Folds wings and cries
Amid the bergs and ice.

Bring no sad palms like those
That led Him to His foes,
Bring wind-flower, daffodil.
From many a vernal hill.

Let there be naught but bloom
To light Him from the tomb
Who late hath slain
Death, and his glory ta'en.

Yea, Death, great Death is dead,
And Life reigns in his stead;
Cometh the Athlete
New from dead Death's defeat.

Cometh the Wrestler,
But Death he makes no stir,
Utterly spent and done,
And all his kingdom gone.

Bring flowers, make holiday,
In His triumphal way.
Salve ye with kisses
His hurts that make your blisses.

Bring flowers, make holiday,
For His triumphal way:
Yea, fling before Him
Hearts of men that adore Him.

~~
Katharine Tynan (1861-1931)
from Poems, 1901

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

Katharine Tynan biography

Sheep and Lambs / Katharine Tynan

Sheep and Lambs

All in the April evening,
     April airs were abroad,
The sheep with their little lambs
     Passed me by on the road.

The sheep with their little lambs
     Passed me by on the road;
All in the April evening
     I thought on the Lamb of God.

The lambs were weary, and crying
     With a weak, human cry.
I thought on the Lamb of God
     Going meekly to die.

Up in the blue, blue mountains
     Dewy pastures are sweet
Rest for the little bodies,
     Rest for the little feet

~~
Katharine Tynan (1861-1931)
from Ballads and Lyrics, 1891

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

Katharine Tynan biography

Spring Rain / Sara Teasdale

Spring Rain

I thought I had forgotten,
   But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
   In a rush of rain.

I remembered a darkened doorway
   Where we stood while the storm swept by,
Thunder gripping the earth
   And lightning scrawled on the sky.

The passing motor busses swayed,
   For the street was a river of rain,
Lashed into little golden waves
   In the lamp light's stain.

With the wild spring rain and thunder
   My heart was wild and gay;
Your eyes said more to me that night
   Than your lips would ever say. . . .

I thought I had forgotten,
   But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
   In a rush of rain.

~~
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
from Love Songs, 1917

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

Sara Teasdale biography

April in the Hills / Archibald Lampman

April in the Hills

To-day the world is wide and fair
With sunny fields of lucid air,
And waters dancing everywhere;
    The snow is almost gone;
The noon is builded high with light,                      
     And over heaven’s liquid height,
In steady fleets serene and white,
    The happy clouds go on.

The channels run, the bare earth steams,
And every hollow rings and gleams                          
With jetting falls and dashing streams;
    The rivers burst and fill;
The fields are full of little lakes,
And when the romping wind awakes
The water ruffles blue and shakes,                        
    And the pines roar on the hill.

The crows go by, a noisy throng;
About the meadows all day long
The shore-lark drops his brittle song;
    And up the leafless tree                              
The nut-hatch runs, and nods, and clings;
The bluebird dips with flashing wings,
The robin flutes, the sparrow sings,
    And the swallows float and flee.

I break the spirit’s cloudy bands,                        
A wanderer in enchanted lands,
I feel the sun upon my hands;
    And far from care and strife
The broad earth bids me forth. I rise
With lifted brow and upward eyes.                          
I bathe my spirit in blue skies,
    And taste the springs of life.

I feel the tumult of new birth;
I waken with the wakening earth;
I match the bluebird in her mirth;                            
     And wild with wind and sun,
A treasurer of immortal days,
I roam the glorious world with praise,
The hillsides and the woodland ways,
    Till earth and I are one.                              

~~

Archibald Lampman (1861-1899)
from Lyrics of Earth, 1895

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Archibald Lampman biography

"April in the Hills" read by Mackenzie Nicole Greenwood. Courtesy Books: Volume Two.