Under the April Moon / Bliss Carman

Under the April Moon

Oh, well the world is dreaming
Under the April moon,
Her soul in love with beauty,
Her senses all a-swoon!

Pure hangs the silver crescent
Above the twilight wood,
And pure the silver music
Wakes from the marshy flood.

O Earth, with all thy transport,
How comes it life should seem
A shadow in the moonlight,
A murmur in a dream?

~~
Bliss Carman (1861-1929)
from April Airs: A book of New England lyrics, 1916

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

Bliss Carman biography

"Under the April Moon" read by Richard Mitchley.

The Thrush's Song / James Lewis Milligan

The Thrush's Song

The wind is cold, but its frosty sting
Is drawn, for the air is sweet and fresh;
And in my nostrils I scent the spring,
My spirit rejoices in the flesh!

Not one spring only, but all the springs
Yea, chiefly those that are farthest fled
Are in and about me, the thrush that sings
In yon naked tree is a thrush long dead.

Long dead ah, this is no mournful rhyme,
I sing, like the thrush, a song of hope;
He knows that death is a trick of time,
That a planet is God's kaleidoscope !

Sing, feather'd bard, till I learn your lay,
Your song of the past and the fair to be;
Spin on, bright planet, and bring that day
The summer day that is calling me !

~~
James Lewis Milligan (1876-1961)
from Songs in Time's Despite, 1910

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

James Lewis Milligan 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

Calmly We Walk through This April's Day / Delmore Schwartz

Calmly We Walk through This April’s Day 

Calmly we walk through this April’s day,
Metropolitan poetry here and there,
In the park sit pauper and rentier,
The screaming children, the motor-car
Fugitive about us, running away,
Between the worker and the millionaire
Number provides all distances,
It is Nineteen Thirty-Seven now,
Many great dears are taken away,
What will become of you and me
(This is the school in which we learn ...)
Besides the photo and the memory?
(... that time is the fire in which we burn.)

(This is the school in which we learn ...)
What is the self amid this blaze?
What am I now that I was then
Which I shall suffer and act again,
The theodicy I wrote in my high school days
Restored all life from infancy,
The children shouting are bright as they run
(This is the school in which they learn ...)
Ravished entirely in their passing play!
(... that time is the fire in which they burn.)

Avid its rush, that reeling blaze!
Where is my father and Eleanor?
Not where are they now, dead seven years,
But what they were then?
                                     No more? No more?
From Nineteen-Fourteen to the present day,
Bert Spira and Rhoda consume, consume
Not where they are now (where are they now?)
But what they were then, both beautiful;

Each minute bursts in the burning room,
The great globe reels in the solar fire,
Spinning the trivial and unique away.
(How all things flash! How all things flare!)
What am I now that I was then?
May memory restore again and again
The smallest color of the smallest day:
Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.

~~
Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966)
from In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, 1938

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Delmore Schwartz biography

"Calmly We Walk through This April Day" read by AllegedSuccess.

Waiting / Charles Hanson Towne

Waiting

I thought my heart would break
Because the Spring was slow.
I said, "How long young April sleeps
Beneath the snow!"

But when at last she came
And buds broke in the dew,
I dreamed of my lost love,
And my heart broke, too!

~~
Charles Hanson Towne (1877-1949)
from Beyond the Stars, and other poems, 1913

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

Charles Hanson Towne biography