April poetry

Has April inspired more poetry than any other month? I haven’t seen much of it about so before the month gets away from us I thought I’d feature some.

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of engelond to caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

—Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, Prologue

Did any poem ever start more beautifully? Golly, English was a better language for poetry in Chaucer’s day.


April is in my mistress’s face
And July in her eyes hath place
Within her bosom, a warm September
But in her heart a cold December

—Anonymous

I really love the Thomas Morley setting of this text.


To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots,
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

—Edna St. Vincent Millay, Spring


THE roofs are shining from the rain.
The sparrows tritter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.

Yet the back-yards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree–
I could not be so sure of Spring
Save that it sings in me.

—Sara Teasdale


APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

—T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land


O, TO be in England
Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossom’d pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray’s edge—
That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children’s dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

—Robert Browning

I think we could use a little more Robert Browning these days.


Though April showers may come your way,
They bring the flowers that bloom in May.
So if it’s raining, have no regrets
Because it isn’t raining rain you know,
It’s raining violets.

And when you see clouds upon the hills,
You soon will see crowds of daffodils.
So keep on looking for a bluebird
And listening for his song.
Whenever April Showers come along.

—B. G. DeSylva

And, yes, I am a Jolson fan.


FROM you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dress’d in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laugh’d and leap’d with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;
Nor did I wonder at the Lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the Rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seem’d it Winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.

—William Shakespeare, Sonnet XIII


FWIW April is Poetry Month.

5 comments… add one
  • Ann Julien Link

    LOVE THIS POST! Thanks for brightening my day—takes me back to 1972, early english class at University of Michigan. The professor was wonderful, and the Apryl poem was inspiring. AJ

  • don Link

    Love your website. Do you do this every month?

  • Nan Link

    Loved the poetry especially Chaucer — took me back 50 years to my freshman English class.

  • Dr. Gary Taylor Link

    At the 40-year reunion of the last high-school class I taught before leaving to pursue my doctorate at the University of Arkansas, my students recited Chaucer’s “Prologue.” What a joy to hear students’ reciting those beautiful Middle-English lines after all the years.

  • The joys of April help me in November
    To hold off the chill and the stern days to come

    Thanks
    ElmerP2

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