Home Thoughts, From Abroad 1309

THE PASSING OF MARCH

THE braggart March stood in the season's door
With his broad shoulders blocking up the way,
Shaking the snow-flakes from the cloak he wore,
And from the fringes of his kirtle gray.
Near by him April stood with tearful face,
With violets in her hands, and in her hair
Pale, wild anemones; the fragrant lace

Half-parted from her breast, which seemed like fair, Dawn-tinted mountain snow, smooth-drifted there.

She on the blusterer's arm laid one white hand,
But he would none of her soft blandishment,
Yet did she plead with tears none might withstand,
For even the fiercest hearts at last relent.

And he, at last, in ruffian tenderness,

With one swift, crushing kiss her lips did greet. Ah, poor starved heart!-for that one rude caress, She cast her violets underneath his feet.

Robert Burns Wilson [1850

HOME THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD

Он, 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 white-throat builds, and all the swallows! Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dewdrops--at the bent spray's edgeThat'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 [1812-1889]

SONG

APRIL, April,

Laugh thy girlish laughter;
Then, the moment after,

Weep thy girlish tears!

April, that mine ears
Like a lover greetest,
If I tell thee, sweetest,
All my hopes and fears,
April, April,

Laugh thy golden laughter,

But, the moment after,

Weep thy golden tears!

William Watson [1858

AN APRIL ADORATION

SANG the sunrise on an amber morn-
"Earth, be glad! An April day is born.

"Winter's done, and April's in the skies,
Earth, look up with laughter in your eyes!"

Putting off her dumb dismay of snow,
Earth bade all her unseen children grow.

Then the sound of growing in the air
Rose to God a liturgy of prayer;

And the thronged succession of the days
Uttered up to God a psalm of praise.

Sweet Wild April

Laughed the running sap in every vein,
Laughed the running flurries of warm rain,

Laughed the life in every wandering root,
Laughed the tingling cells of bud and shoot.

God in all the concord of their mirth

Heard the adoration-song of Earth.

Charles G. D. Roberts [1860

1311

SWEET WILD APRIL

O SWEET Wild April

Came over the hills,

He skipped with the winds

And he tripped with the rills;

His raiment was all

Of the daffodils.

Sing hi,

Sing hey,
Sing ho!

O sweet wild April

Came down the lea,

Dancing along

With his sisters three:

Carnation, and Rose,

And tall Lily.

Sing hi,

Sing hey,

Sing ho!

O sweet wild April,

On pastoral quill

Came piping in moonlight
By hollow and hill,

In starlight at midnight,

By dingle and rill.
Sing hi,
Sing hey,

Sing hot

Where sweet wild April
His melody played,
Trooped cowslip, and primrose,
And iris, the maid,
And silver narcissus,

A star in the shade.
Sing hi,

Sing hey,

Sing ho!

When sweet wild April

Dipped down the dale,

Pale cuckoopint brightened,

And windflower frail, And white-thorn, the wood-bride,

In virginal veil.

Sing hi,

Sing hey,

Sing ho!

When sweet wild April

Through deep woods pressed,

Sang cuckoo above him,

And lark on his crest,

And Philomel fluttered

Close under his breast.

Sing hi,

Sing hey,

Sing ho!

O sweet wild April,

Wherever you went

The bondage of winter

Was broken and rent,
Sank elfin ice-city

And frost-goblin's tent.
Sing hi,
Sing hey,

Sing ho!

MOON in heaven's garden, among the clouds that wander, Crescent moon so young to see, above the April ways, Whiten, bloom not yet, not yet, within the twilight yonder; All my spinning is not done, for all the loitering days.

Oh, my heart has two wild wings that ever would be flying!
Oh, my heart's a meadow-lark that ever would be free!
Well it is that I must spin until the light be dying;
Well it is the little wheel must turn all day for me!

All the hill-tops beckon, and beyond the western meadows
Something calls me ever, calls me ever, low and clear:
A little tree as young as I, the coming summer shadows,—
The voice of running waters that I ever thirst to hear.

Oftentime the plea of it has set my wings a-beating;
Oftentime it coaxes, as I sit weary-wise,