December Matins
``Why, on this drear December morn,
Dost thou, lone Misselthrush, rehearse thy chanting?
The corals have been rifled from the thorn,
The pastures lie undenizened and lorn,
And everywhere around there seems a something wanting.''
Whereat, as tho' awondering at my wonder,
And brooded somewhere nigh a love-mate nesting,
He more loud and longer still
'Gan to tremble and to trill,
Height after height of sound robustly breasting;
As if o'erhead were Heaven of blue, and under,
Fresh green leafage, and he would
Cleave with shafts of hardihood
The mists asunder.
Only the singer it is foresees,
Only the Poet has the voice foretelling.
When the ways harden and the sedge-pools freeze,
He hears light-hearted Spring upon the breeze,
And feels the hawthorn buds mysteriously swelling.
Though to the eaves the icicles are clinging,
Or from the sunward gables dripping, dripping,
He with inward gaze beholds
Liberated flocks and folds,
The runnels leaping, and the young lambs skipping,
And dauntless daffodils anew upspringing,
So throughout the wintry days
Meditates prophetic lays,
And keeps on singing.
Not the full-volumed Springtime song,
Not April's note with rapture overflowing,
Melodious cadence, early, late, and long,
Now low and suing, now serenely strong,
But the heart's intimations musically showing
That Love and Verse are never out of season.
Though the winds bluster, and the branches splinter,
He, through cold and dire distress,
Companioned by cheerfulness,
Descries young Mayday through the mask of Winter.
Doubt and despair to him were veilëd treason,
Fashioned never to despond,
By Foreseeing far beyond
The range of Reason.
Therefore, brave bird, sing on, for some to hear
If faintly, fitfully, and though to-morrow
Will be the shortest day of all the year,
Though fields be flowerless and fallows drear,
And earth seems cherishing some secret sorrow,
The dawn will come when it anew will glisten
With tears of gladness, glen and dingle waken,
Winter's tents be furled and routed,
April notes be sung and shouted,
Over the fleeing host and camp forsaken;
The nightingale ne'er cease, the cuckoo christen
Hedgerow posies with its call,
And unto glee and madrigal
The whole world listen.
poem by Alfred Austin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Farewell To Spring
I saw this morning, with a sudden smart,
Spring preparing to depart.
I know her well and so I told her all my heart.
``Why did you, Spring, your coming so delay,
If, now here, you cannot stay?
You win my love and then unloving pass away.
``We waited, waited, O so long, so long,
Just to hear the ousel's song.
To-morrow 'twill be hushed, to-day that is so strong.
``Day after day, and dawn again on dawn,
Winter's shroud was on the lawn,
So still, so smooth, we thought 'twould never be withdrawn.
`Now that at last your welcome mimic snow
Doth upon the hawthorn blow,
It bides not on the bough, but melts before we know.
``Scarce hath the primrose o'er the sordid mould
Lavished treasure, than behold!
Our wealth of simple joy is robbed of all its gold.
``When to the woods we hie with feet of mirth,
Now the hyacinths have birth,
Swiftly the blue of Heaven fades from the face of earth.
``You with dry gusts and unrelenting wrack
Kept the liquid cuckoo back.
Now, even ere he goes, he turneth hoarse, alack!
``When, in the long warm nights of June,
Nightingales have got their tune,
Their sweet woe dies, and we are beggared of the boon.
``First drops the bloom, then darkens the green leaf;
Everything in life is brief,
Save autumn's deepening gloom and winter's changeless grief.''
Then with a smile thus answered me the Spring:
``To my voice and flight you cling,
For I, before I perch, again am on the wing.
``With you were I the whole year round to stay,
'Twould be you that went away,
Your love made fickle by monotony of May.
``Love cannot live save upon love beyond.
Leaving you, I keep you fond,
Not letting you despair, but making you despond.
`Farewell, and love me still, my lover dear,
Love me till another year,
And you, if you be true, again will find me here.''
Then darker, deeper, waxed the woods; the ground
Flowerless turned and then embrowned;
And less was of sweet scent, and less was of sweet sound.
Mute was the mavis, moulted was the thorn,
Meads were cut, and lambs were shorn,
And I by Spring was left forsaken and forlorn.
Forlorn, forsaken, shall I be until
Primrose peep and throstle shrill,
And in the orchard gleam the outriding daffodil.
Then shall I know that Spring among the trees
Hiding is, and that the breeze
Anew will fling abroad odours and melodies.
poem by Alfred Austin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A Spring Carol
I
Blithe friend! blithe throstle! Is it thou,
Whom I at last again hear sing,
Perched on thy old accustomed bough,
Poet-prophet of the Spring?
Yes! Singing as thou oft hast sung,
I can see thee there among
The clustered branches of my leafless oak;
Where, thy plumage gray as it,
Thou mightst unsuspected sit,
Didst thou not thyself betray
With thy penetrating lay,
Swelling thy mottled breast at each triumphant stroke.
Wherefore warble half concealed,
When thy notes are shaft and shield,
And no hand that lives would slay
Singer of such a roundelay?
Telling of thy presence thus,
Be nor coy nor timorous!
Sing loud! Sing long!
And let thy song
Usurp the air 'twixt earth and sky:
Let it soar and sink and rally,
Ripple low along the valley,
Break against the fir-trees high,
Ofttimes pausing, never dying,
While we lean where fancy bids,
Listening, with half-closèd lids,
Unto the self-same chant, most sweet, most satisfying.
II
Where hast thou been all the dumb winter days,
When neither sunlight was nor smile of flowers,
Neither life, nor love, nor frolic,
Only expanse melancholic,
With never a note of thy exhilarating lays?
But, instead, the raven's croak,
Sluggish dawns and draggled hours,
Gusts morose and callous showers,
Underneath whose cutting stroke
Huddle the seasoned kine, and even the robin cowers.
Wast thou asleep in some snug hollow
Of my hybernating oak,
Through the dripping weeks that follow
One another slow, and soak
Summer's extinguished fire and autumn's drifting smoke?
Did its waking awake thee,
Or thou it with melody?
Or together did ye both
Start from winter's sleep and sloth,
And the self-same sap that woke
Bole and branch, and sets them budding,
Is thy throat with rapture flooding?
Or, avoiding icy yoke,
When golden leaves floated on silver meres,
And pensive Autumn, keeping back her tears,
Nursed waning Summer in her quiet lap,
Didst thou timely pinions flap,
Fleeing from a land of loss,
And, with happy mates, across
Ocean's restless ridges travel,
To that lemon-scented shore
Where, beneath a deep-domed sky,
Carven of lapis-lazuli,
Golden sunlight evermore
Glistens against golden gravel,
Nor ever a snowflake falls, nor rain-clouds wheel and ravel;
Clime where I wandered once among
Ruins old with feelings young,
Whither too I count to fly
When my songful seasons die,
And with the self-same spell which, first when mine,
Intensified my youth, to temper my decline.
III
Wherefore dost thou sing, and sing?
Is it for sheer joy of singing?
Is it to hasten lagging Spring,
Or greet the Lenten lilies through turf and turf upspringing?
Dost thou sing to earth or sky?
Never comes but one reply:
Carol faint, carol high,
Ringing, ringing, ringing!
Are those iterated trills
For the down-looking daffodils,
That have strained and split their sheath,
And are listening underneath?
Or but music's prompting note,
Whereunto the lambs may skip?
Haply dost thou swell thy throat,
Only to show thy craftsmanship?
Wouldst thou pipe if none should hearken?
If the sky should droop and darken,
And, as came the hills more close,
Moody March to wooing Spring
Sudden turned a mouth morose,-
Unheeded wouldst, unheeding, sing?
What is it rules thy singing season?
Instinct, that diviner reason,
To which the thirst to know seemeth a sort of treason?
If it be,
Enough for me,
And any motive for thy music I
Will not ask thee to impart,
Letting my head play traitor to my heart,
Too deeply questioning why.
Sing for nothing, if thou wilt,
Or, if thou for aught must sing,
Sing unto thy anxious spouse,
Sitting somewhere 'mong the boughs,
In the nest that thou hast built,
Underneath her close-furled wing
Future carols fostering.
Sing, because it is thy bent;
Sing, to heighten thy content!
Sing, for secret none can guess;
Sing for very uselessness!
Sing for love of love and pleasure,
Unborn joy, unfound treasure,
Rapture no words can reach, yearning no thoughts can measure!
IV
Why dost thou ever cease to sing?
Singing is such sweet comfort, who,
If he could sing the whole year through,
Would barter it for anything?
Why do not thou and joy their reign assert
Over winter, death, and hurt?
If thou forcest them to flee,
They in turn will banish thee,
Making life betwixt ye thus
Mutably monotonous.
O, why dost thou not perch and pipe perpetually?
All the answer I do get,
Is louder, madder music yet;
Thus rebuking: Thou dost err!
I am no philosopher;
Only a poet, forced to sing,
When the cold gusts gather and go,
When the earth stirs in its tomb,
And, asudden, witching Spring
Into her bosom sucks the snow,
To give it back in thorn and cherry-bloom:
When along the hedgerows twinkle
Roguish eyes of periwinkle,
When with undulating glee
Yaffles scream from tree to tree,
And on every bank are seen
Primroses that long have been
Lying in wait with ambushed eyes
To break forth when Winter flies,
Joined by all things swift and sweet,
Following him with noiseless feet,
Pelting him with April showers,
Chasing and chanting his defeat,
Till with undisputed flowers
Thronged are all the lanes to greet
Dove-like inspiring Spring, many-voiced Paraclete.
V
Therefore, glad bird! warble, and shrill, and carol,
Now that Earth whom winter stripped,
Putteth on her Spring apparel,
Daintily woven, gaily tipped;
Now that in the tussocked mead
Lambkins one another jostle,-
Carol, carol! jocund throstle!
Impregnating the air with thy melodious seed,
Which, albeit scattered late,
Now will quickly germinate,
Giving us who waited long
Vernal harvest of ripe song:
Which, I do perceive, was sent
Nowise to deepen argument,
Rather to teach me how, like thee,
To merge doubt in melody.
Sing, sing away,
All through the day,
Lengthening out the twilight gray,
And with thy trebles of delight
Invade the threshold of the night:
Until felicity, too high, too deep,
Saturated senses steep,
And all that lives and loves subside to songless sleep.
poem by Alfred Austin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A March Minstrel
Hail! once again, that sweet strong note!
Loud on my loftiest larch,
Thou quaverest with thy mottled throat,
Brave minstrel of bleak March!
Hearing thee flute, who pines or grieves
For vernal smiles and showers?
Thy voice is greener than the leaves,
And fresher than the flowers.
Scorning to wait for tuneful May
When every throat can sing,
Thou floutest Winter with thy lay,
And art thyself the Spring.
While daffodils, half mournful still,
Muffle their golden bells,
Thy silvery peal o'er landscape chill
Surges, and sinks, and swells.
Across the unsheltered pasture floats
The young lamb's shivering bleat:
There is no trembling in thy notes,
For all the snow and sleet.
Let the bullace bide till frosts have ceased,
The blackthorn loiter long;
Undaunted by the blustering east,
Thou burgeonest into song.
Yet who can wonder thou dost dare
Confront what others flee?
Thy carol cuts the keen March air
Keener than it cuts Thee.
The selfish cuckoo tarrieth till
April repays his boast.
Thou, thou art lavish of thy trill,
Now when we need it most.
The nightingale, while birds are coy,
Delays to chant its grief.
Brave throstle! thou dost pipe for joy
With never a bough in leaf.
Even fond turtle-doves forbear
To coo till woods are warm:
Thou hast the heart to love and pair
Ere the cherry blossoms swarm.
The skylark, fluttering to be heard
In realms beyond his birth,
Soars vainly heavenward. Thou, wise bird!
Art satisfied with earth.
Thy home is not upon the ground,
Thy hope not in the sky:
Near to thy nest thy notes resound,
Neither too low nor high.
Blow what wind will, thou dost rejoice
To carol, and build, and woo.
Throstle! to me impart thy voice;
Impart thy wisdom too.
poem by Alfred Austin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Sonnet to the Nightingale
O nightingale that on yon blooming spray
Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still,
Thou with fresh hopes the Lover’s heart dost fill,
While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May.
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of Day,
First heard before the shallow cuckoo’s bill,
Portend success in love. O if Jove’s will
Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay,
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate
Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh;
As thou from year to year hast sung too late
For my relief, yet had’st no reason why.
Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate,
Both them I serve, and of their train am I.
poem by John Milton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A Poet’s Eightieth Birthday
``He dieth young whom the Gods love,'' was said
By Greek Menander; nor alone by One
Who gave to Greece his English song and sword
Re-echoed is the saying, but likewise he
``Who uttered nothing base,'' and from whose brow,
By right divine, the laurel lapsed to yours,-
Great sire, great successor,-in verse confirmed
The avowal of ``the Morning-Star of Song,''
Happiest is he that dieth in his flower.
Yet can it be that it is gain, not loss,
To quit the pageant of this life before
The heart hath learnt its meaning; leave half-seen,
Half-seen, half-felt, and not yet understood,
The beauty and the bounty of the world;
The fertile waywardness of wanton Spring,
Summer's deep calm, the modulated joy
Of Autumn conscious of a task fulfilled,
And home-abiding Winter's pregnant sleep,
The secret of the seasons? Gain, to leave
The depths of love unfathomed, its heights unscaled,
Rapture and woe unreconciled, and pain
Unprized, unapprehended? This is loss,
Loss and not gain, sheer forfeiture of good,
Is banishment from Eden, though its fruit
Remains untasted.
Interpret then the oracle, ``He dies young
Whom the Gods love,'' for Song infallible
Hath so pronounced! . . . Thus I interpret it:
The favourites of the Gods die young, for they,
They grow not old with grief and deadening time,
But still keep April moisture in their heart
May's music in their ears. Their voice revives,
Revives, rejuvenates, the wintry world,
Flushes the veins of gnarled and knotted age,
And crowns the majesty of life with leaves
As green as are the sapling's.
Thrice happy Poet! to have thus renewed
Your youth with wisdom,-who, though life still seems
To your fresh gaze as frolic and as fair
As in the callow season when your heart
Was but the haunt and pairing-place and nest
Of nightingale and cuckoo, have enriched
Joy's inexperienced warblings with the note
Of mellow music, and whose mind mature,
Laden with life's sustaining lessons, still
Gleams bright with hope; even as I saw, to-day,
An April rainbow span the August corn.
Long may your green maturity maintain
Its universal season; and your voice,
A household sound, be heard about our hearths,
Now as a Christmas carol, now as the glee
Of vernal Maypole, now as harvest song.
And when, like light withdrawn from earth to heaven,
Your glorious gloaming fades into the sky,
We, looking upward, shall behold you there,
Shining amid the young unageing stars.
poem by Alfred Austin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
To the Nightingale
O Nightingale! that on yon bloomy spray
Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still,
Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill,
While the jolly hours lead on propitious May.
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day,
First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill,
Portend success in love; O, if Jove's will
Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay,
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate
Foretell my hopeless doom in some grove nigh;
As thou from year to year hast sung too late
For my relief, yet hadst no reason why:
Whether the Muse, or Love, call thee his mate,
Both them I serve, and of their train am I.
poem by John Milton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Eight Years Old
SUN, whom the faltering snow-cloud fears,
Rise, let the time of year be May,
Speak now the word that April hears,
Let March have all his royal way;
Bid all spring raise in winter’s ears
All tunes her children hear or play,
Because the crown of eight glad years
On one bright head is set to-day.
II.
What matters cloud or sun to-day
To him who wears the wreath of years
So many, and all like flowers at play
With wind and sunshine, while his ears
Hear only song on every way?
More sweet than spring triumphant hears
Ring through the revel-rout of May
Are these, the notes that winter fears.
III.
Strong-hearted winter knows and fears
The music made of love at play,
Or haply loves the tune he hears
From hearts fulfilled with flowering May,
Whose molten music thaws his ears
Late frozen, deaf but yesterday
To sounds of dying and dawning years,
Now quickened on his deathward way.
IV.
For deathward now lies winter’s way
Down the green vestibule of years
That each year brightens day by day
With flower and shower till hope scarce fears
And fear grows wholly hope of May.
But we—the music in our ears
Made of love’s pulses as they play
The heart alone that makes it hears.
V.
The heart it is that plays and hears
High salutation of to-day.
Tongue falters, hand shrinks back, song fears
Its own unworthiness to play
Fit music for those eight sweet years,
Or sing their blithe accomplished way.
No song quite worth a young child’s ears
Broke ever even from birds in May.
VI.
There beats not in the heart of May,
When summer hopes and springtide fears,
There falls not from the height of day,
When sunlight speaks and silence hears,
So sweet a psalm as children play
And sing, each hour of all their years,
Each moment of their lovely way,
And know not how it thrills our ears.
VII.
Ah child, what are we, that our ears
Should hear you singing on your way,
Should have this happiness? The years
Whose hurrying wings about us play
Are not like yours, whose flower-time fears
Nought worse than sunlit showers in May,
Being sinless as the spring, that hears
Her own heart praise her every day.
VIII.
Yet we too triumph in the day
That bare, to entrance our eyes and ears,
To lighten daylight, and to play
Such notes as darkness knows and fears,
The child whose face illumes our way,
Whose voice lifts up the heart that hears,
Whose hand is as the hand of May
To bring us flowers from eight full years.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A November Note
Why, throstle, do you sing
In this November haze?
Singing for what? for whom?
Deem you that it is Spring,
Or that your lonely lays
Will stave off Winter's gloom?
Then did the bird reply:
``I sing because I know
That Spring will surely come:
That is the reason why,
Though menaced by the snow,
Even now I am not dumb.
``But few are they that hear,
And fewer still that feel,
The meaning of my song,
Until the note be clear,
Re-echoed be the peal,
Early, and late, and long.
``But you have heard and owned
The sound of my refrain,
Yet tentative and low.
Thus, poet, be intoned
Your own foreshadowing strain,
Trusting that some will know:
``That some will know and say,
When greetings of the Spring
Wake Winter from its bed,
This is the self-same lay
We overheard him sing
When dead hearts deemed him dead.''
poem by Alfred Austin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Call Of April
April calling, April calling,
April calling me!
I hear the voice of April there
In each old apple tree:
Bee-boom and wild perfume,
And wood-brook melody,
O hark, my heart, and hear, my heart,
The April Ecstasy!
Hark to the hills, the oldtime hills,
That talk with sea and sky!
Or speak in murmurs with God's winds
Who on their bosoms lie:
Bird-call and waterfall
And white clouds blowing by,
O hark, my heart, O hear, my heart,
The April's cosmic cry!
There runs a whisper through the woods,
The word of bough to bough,
A sound of dead things donning green,
Of Beauty waking now:
Fern-bower and wilding flower,
Each like a prayer or vow,
O see, my heart, O look, my heart,
Where Earth crowns white her brow!
And far away, and far away,
Yet nearer than she seems,
Look where she takes the oldtime trail
And walks again with dreams:
Bird note and blue remote
And laughter of wild streams,
O hark, my heart, O hear, my heart,
And follow where she gleams!
Earth has put off her winter garb
Of gray and drab and dun,
And robes herself in raiment green
Of love and laughter spun:
Wood-bloom and wood-perfume
And colors of the sun,
O hark, my heart, O hear, my heart,
Where her wild footsteps run!
O April, mother of my soul,
Take to your heart your child:
And let him lie a little while
Upon its rapture wild:
Lean close and near, and let him hear
The words that once beguiled,
And on his eyes the kiss again
Of longing reconciled.
O kiss, that fills the fields with flowers
And thrills with green each grove,
Dream down into this heart again
And grow to songs thereof:
Wild songs in singing throngs,
That swift shall mount above,
And, like to birds, with lyric words,
Take Earth and Heaven with love.
poem by Madison Julius Cawein
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Lure Of Spring
As I walked out one brave spring morn,
When earth was young and new,
I met a laughing mountain maid
As fresh as mountain dew.
Oh, blow you breezes; shine, you sun!
For this the world was well begun.
And spring's soft promise, lifted high,
Shone wattle gold against blue sky.
As I walked with her that spring morn
I sought her brave young eyes,
And to earth's olden mysteries
I straightway read replies.
Oh, yearn you, gum-tips to the sun!
For this the world was well begun.
And mysteries thronged about us now
As green buds swelled upon the bough.
I have walked out on many a Spring
Since that long-vanished day;
But aught of that ill-treasured lore
Recapture no man may.
Yet, laugh you, young grass to the sun!
For that the world was well begun.
And every bird-song gladly sung
Still whispers secrets to earth's young.
As I walk out this brave spring morn,
And man and maid I see
By some green way, I thank kind life
That gave one Spring to me.
Oh, blow you breezes; shine you sun!
For this the world was well begun:
That spring holds for young lovers yet
Deeps secret that the old forget.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Passing Of The Primroses
Primroses, why do you pass away?
Primroses
Nay, rather, why should we longer stay?
We are not needed, now stooping showers
Have sandalled the feet of May with flowers.
Surely, surely, 'tis time to go,
Now that the splendid bluebells blow,
Scattering a bridal peal, to hail
June blushing under her hawthorn veil.
We abode with you all the long winter through:
You may not have seen us, but we saw you,
Chafing your hands in the beaded haze,
And shivering home to your Yuletide blaze.
Why should we linger, when all things pass?
We have buried old Winter beneath the grass,
Seen the first larch break, heard the first lamb bleat,
Watched the first foal stoop to its mother's teat:
The crocus prick with its spears aglow
'Gainst the rallying flakes of the routed snow,
The isle-keeping titmouse wed and hatch,
And the swallow come home to its native thatch:
Fresh emeralds jewel the bare-brown mould,
And the blond sallow tassel herself with gold,
The hive of the broom brim with honeyed dew,
And Springtime swarm in the gorse anew.
When breastplated March his trumpets blew,
We laughed in his face, till he laughed too;
Then, drying our lids when the sleet was done,
Smiled back to the smile of the April sun.
We were first to hear, in the hazel moat,
The nut-brown bird with the poet's note,
That sings, ``Love is neither false nor fleet,''
Makes passion tender, and sorrow sweet.
We were stretched on the grass when the cuckoo's voice
Bade the old grow young, and the young rejoice;
The half-fledged singer who flouts and rails,
So forces the note when his first note fails:
Who scorns, understanding but in part,
The sweet solicitudes of the heart,
But might learn, from the all-year-cooing dove,
That joy hath a briefer life than love.
We would rather go ere the sweet Spring dies.
We have seen the violet droop its eyes,
The sorrel grow green where the celandine shone,
And the windflower fade ere you knew 'twas gone.
The campion comes to take our place,
And you will not miss us in brake or chase,
Now the fragile frond of the fern uncurls,
And the hawthorns necklace themselves with pearls.
When June's love crimsons the cheek of the rose,
And the meadow-swathes sweep in rhythmic rows,
And foxgloves gleam in the darkest glen,
You will not recall nor regret us then.
Leave us our heavenly lot, to cheer
Your lives in the midnight of the year;
And 'tis meet that our light should be withdrawn,
Being stars of winter, with summer's dawn.
For we do not sink into death's dank cave;
The earth is our cradle, and not our grave:
The tides and the stars sway it low and high,
And the sycamore bees hum lullaby.
But when winds roam lonely and dun clouds drift,
Let Winter, the white-haired nurse, but lift
The snowy coverlet softly, then
We will open our eyelids, and smile again.
How oft have you longed that your little ones would
Outgrow not the charm of babyhood,
Keep the soft round arms and the warm moist kiss,
And the magic of April sinlessness!
Then chide us not, now we look good-bye:
We are the children for whom you sigh.
We slip 'neath the sod before summer's prime,
And so keep young to the end of time.
poem by Alfred Austin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
April, Dear April
April, dear April, I beg you come soon –
And bring your sweet primroses too.
Let them join in with the daffodils’ play,
As skies offer sunshine anew.
April, dear April, my blessed spring child,
Ornate in your yellow and white,
Teasing the birds into trilling their songs
And dancing to music of flight.
April, dear April, come enter my dreams
And rid me from cold winter chills.
Banish the rain and those blustery winds
And warm up our countryside hills.
April, dear April, I know you can’t stay -
You have to move on ‘till next year.
And though I shall cherish the glory of summer,
You’ll always be my month most dear.
From: Succumbed to Thinking by Mark Raymond Slaughter, lulu.com
Copyright © Mark Raymond Slaughter 2009
All rights reserved
April April April April
April April April April
April April April April
poem by Mark R Slaughter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Primroses
I
Latest, earliest of the year,
Primroses that still were here,
Snugly nestling round the boles
Of the cut-down chestnut poles,
When December's tottering tread
Rustled 'mong the deep leaves dead,
And with confident young faces
Peeped from out the sheltered places
When pale January lay
In its cradle day by day,
Dead or living, hard to say;
Now that mid-March blows and blusters,
Out you steal in tufts and clusters,
Making leafless lane and wood
Vernal with your hardihood.
Other lovely things are rare,
You are prodigal as fair.
First you come by ones and ones,
Lastly in battalions,
Skirmish along hedge and bank,
Turn old Winter's wavering flank,
Round his flying footsteps hover,
Seize on hollow, ridge, and cover,
Leave nor slope nor hill unharried,
Till, his snowy trenches carried,
O'er his sepulchre you laugh,
Winter's joyous epitaph.
II
This, too, be your glory great,
Primroses, you do not wait,
As the other flowers do,
For the Spring to smile on you,
But with coming are content,
Asking no encouragement.
Ere the hardy crocus cleaves
Sunny border 'neath the eaves,
Ere the thrush his song rehearse,
Sweeter than all poets' verse,
Ere the early bleating lambs
Cling like shadows to their dams,
Ere the blackthorn breaks to white,
Snowy-hooded anchorite;
Out from every hedge you look,
You are bright by every brook,
Wearing for your sole defence
Fearlessness of innocence.
While the daffodils still waver,
Ere the jonquil gets its savour,
While the linnets yet but pair,
You are fledged, and everywhere.
Nought can daunt you, nought distress,
Neither cold nor sunlessness.
You, when Lent sleet flies apace,
Look the tempest in the face;
As descend the flakes more slow,
From your eyelids shake the snow,
And when all the clouds have flown,
Meet the sun's smile with your own.
Nothing ever makes you less
Gracious to ungraciousness.
March may bluster up and down,
Pettish April sulk and frown;
Closer to their skirts you cling,
Coaxing Winter to be Spring.
III
Then when your sweet task is done,
And the wild-flowers, one by one,
Here, there, everywhere do blow,
Primroses, you haste to go,
Satisfied with what you bring,
Fading morning-stars of Spring.
You have brightened doubtful days,
You have sweetened long delays,
Fooling our enchanted reason
To miscalculate the season.
But when doubt and fear are fled,
When the kine leave wintry shed,
And 'mid grasses green and tall
Find their fodder, make their stall;
When the wintering swallow flies
Homeward back from southern skies,
To the dear old cottage thatch
Where it loves to build and hatch,
That its young may understand,
Nor forget, this English land;
When the cuckoo, mocking rover,
Laughs that April loves are over;
When the hawthorn, all ablow,
Mimics the defeated snow;
Then you give one last look round,
Stir the sleepers underground,
Call the campion to awake,
Tell the speedwell courage take,
Bid the eyebright have no fear,
Whisper in the bluebell's ear
Time has come for it to flood
With its blue waves all the wood,
Mind the stichwort of its pledge
To replace you in the hedge,
Bid the ladysmocks good-bye,
Close your bonnie lids and die;
And, without one look of blame,
Go as gently as you came.
poem by Alfred Austin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
And we will call it Britain
Crisp green the stems of daffodils
That brave in spring cold sun
Soft tender green the hawthorn buds
Unfurled with winter done
Bright green the fresh leaves on the limes
That verdant branches lace
Dark green the lily’s slender shoot
That moist earth, piercing breaks
But greenest of all that is green
An island Earth did make
And we will call it Britain
Natures green estate
poem by Egal Bohen
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
To a Robin in November
Sweet, sweet and the soft listening heaven reels
In one blue ecstasy above thy song
In the red heart of all the opening year,
In the hushed murmur of low dreaming fields
Hung under heaven ’twixt dim blue and blue;
Where the young Summer, purpled and pearled in dew,
Mirrors herself in June, and knows no wrong.
Sweet, sweet, throwing thy lack of fear
Back to the heart of God, till heaven feels
The throbbing of earth’s music through and through.
Dreaming in song,—great pulsing-hearted hills,
Cradling the dawn in mists and purple veils
Of vapors, over pearls of lakes and brooks
Girdled about the neck of half the world,
When the red birth of the young dreaming June
Kisses the lands with gales, and murmurs, and trills
Of melody, lips that blossom with tales
Of music and color and form and beauty of looks
And snowy argosies in heaven furled,
All summer set to one sweet warbled tune.
And thou, red-throated, comest back to me
Here in the bare November bleak and chill,
Breathing the red-ripe of the lusty June
Over the rime of withered field and mere;
O heart of music, while I dream of thee,
Thou gladdest note in the dead Summer’s tune,
Great God! thou liest dead outside my sill,
Starved of the last chill berry on thy tree,
Like some sweet instrument left all unstrung,
The melodious orchestra of all the year.
Dead with the sweet dead summer thou had’st sung;
Dead with the dead year’s voices and clasp of hands;
Dead with all music and love and laughter and light;
While chilly and bleak comes up the winter night,
And shrieks the gust across the leafless lands.
poem by William Wilfred Campbell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
April
April, pride of woodland ways,
Of glad days,
April, bringing hope of prime,
To the young flowers that beneath
Their bud sheath
Are guarded in their tender time;
April, pride of fields that be
Green and free,
That in fashion glad and gay,
Stud with flowers red and blue,
Every hue,
Their jewelled spring array;
April, pride of murmuring
Winds of spring,
That beneath the winnowed air,
Trap with subtle nets and sweet
Flora’s feet,
Flora’s feet, the fleet and fair;
April, by thy hand caressed,
From her breast
Nature scatters everywhere
Handfuls of all sweet perfumes,
Buds and blooms,
Making faint the earth and air.
April, joy of the green hours,
Clothes with flowers
Over all her locks of gold
My sweet Lady; and her breast
With the blest
Birds of summer manifold.
April, with thy gracious wiles,
Like the smiles,
Smiles of Venus; and thy breath
Like her breath, the Gods’ delight,
(From their height
They take the happy air beneath)
It is thou that, of thy grace,
From their place
In the far-oft isles dost bring
Swallows over earth and sea,
Glad to be
Messengers of thee, and Spring.
Daffodil and eglantine,
And woodbine,
Lily, violet, and rose
Plentiful in April fair,
To the air,
Their pretty petals do unclose.
Nightingales ye now may hear,
Piercing clear,
Singing in the deepest shade;
Many and many a babbled note
Chime and float,
Woodland music through the glade.
April, all to welcome thee,
Spring sets free
Ancient flames, and with low breath
Wakes the ashes grey and old
That the cold
Chilled within our hearts to death.
Thou beholdest in the warm
Hours, the swarm
Of the thievish bees, that flies
Evermore from bloom to bloom
For perfume,
Hid away in tiny thighs.
Her cool shadows May can boast,
Fruits almost
Ripe, and gifts of fertile dew,
Manna-sweet and honey-sweet,
That complete
Her flower garland fresh and new.
Nay, but I will give my praise,
To these days,
Named with the glad name of Her
That from out the foam o’ the sea
Came to be
Sudden light on earth and air.
poem by Remy Belleau
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Sonnet VII: Sweet Poet of the Woods
Sweet poet of the woods--a long adieu!
Farewel, soft minstrel of the early year!
Ah! 'twill be long ere thou shalt sing anew,
And pour thy music on the 'night's dull ear,'
Whether on spring thy wandering flights await,
Or whether silent in our groves ye dwell,
The pensive muse shall own thee for her mate,
And still protect the song, she loves so well.
With cautious step, the love-lorn youth shall glide
Thro' the lone brake that shades thy mossy nest;
And shepherd girls, from eyes profane shall hide
The gentle bird, who sings of pity best.
For still thy voice shall soft affections move,
And still be dear to sorrow, and to love!
poem by Charlotte Smith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Hills Of Youth
Once, on the far blue hills,
Alone with the pine and the cloud, in those high still places;
Alone with a whisper of ferns and a chuckle of rills,
And the peat-brown pools that mirrored the angels’ faces,
Pools that mirrored the wood-pigeon’s grey-blue feather,
And all my thistledown dreams as they drifted along;
Once, oh, once, on the hills, thro’ the red-bloomed heather
I followed an elfin song.
Once, by the wellsprings of joy,
In the glens of the hart’s-tongue fern, where the brooks came leaping
Over the rocks, like a scrambling bare-foot boy
That never had heard of a world grown old with weeping;
Once, thro’ the golden gorse (do the echoes linger
In Paradise woods, where the foam of the may runs wild?)
I followed the flute of a light-foot elfin singer,
A god with the eyes of a child.
Once, he sang to me there,
From a crag on a thyme-clad height where the dew still glistened;
He sang like the spirit of Spring in that dawn-flushed air,
While the angels opened their doors and the whole sky listened:
He sang like the soul of a rainbow, if heaven could hear it,
Beating to heaven, on wings that were April’s own;
A song too happy and brave for the heart to bear it,
Had the heart of the hearer known.
Once, ah, once, no more,
The hush and the rapture of youth in those holy places,
The stainless height, the hearts that sing and adore
Till the sky breaks out into flower with the angels’ faces!
Once, in the dawn, they were mine; but the noon bereft me.
At midnight now, in an ebb of the loud world’s roar,
I catch but a broken stave of the songs that left me
On hills that are mine no more.
poem by Alfred Noyes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Seeking Beauty
Cold winds can never freeze, nor thunder sour
The cup of cheer that Beauty draws for me
Out of those Azure heavens and this green earth --
I drink and drink, and thirst the more I see.
To see the dewdrops thrill the blades of grass,
Makes my whole body shake; for here's my choice
Of either sun or shade, and both are green --
A Chaffinch laughs in his melodious voice.
The banks are stormed by Speedwell, that blue flower
So like a little heaven with one star out;
I see an amber lake of buttercups,
And Hawthorn foams the hedges round about.
The old Oak tree looks now so green and young,
That even swallows perch awhile and sing:
This is that time of year, so sweet and warm,
When bats wait not for stars ere they take wing.
As long as I love Beauty I am young,
Am young or old as I love more or less;
When Beauty is not heeded or seems stale,
My life's a cheat, let Death end my distress.
poem by William Henry Davies
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
April Far Away
On the mossy ditch along the old bohreen
Wildflowers in their thousands are now to be seen
Bluebells and primroses and snowdrops in white
Bloom after the rains in the warm Spring sunlight.
Dandelions, buttercups and daisies in April are never rare
In the lush green fields they are seen everywhere
And the pink breasted bullfinch singing on the alder tree
Amidst all the greenery quite easy to see.
The wild birds are nesting and all through the day
The leafy groves echo to their songs in April far away
And young lambs in the fields around their mothers play
Youth must have it's fling you hear people say.
The lark carols above the mountain and the clear flowing rill
It babbles it's way down the field by the hill
On to join the big stream along by the hedgerow
That flows to the big river that to the sea flow.
The crab tree wears her blossoms of light pink to gray
And far north of here in April far away
The fox cubs in the sunshine play outside their den
And in fancy I hear the loud song of the wren.
poem by Francis Duggan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!