Poems of April

What a great lot of poems about April to find! Thanks to all of you.

Glad you thought of the T.S. Eliot, Jjorge. I think you are right, it may be the most famous reference to April in English, but I <hanging head in shame> have never read it in context.

Satt -- Not just Chinese but Greek thought? You are a wonder to have found these perfectly formed ideas. (And I think I should have pruned that old grapevine a week or two ago.)

Algis - Apes will what???

Hi Babs. Glad to see you and thanks for the link. I liked the list of what was going on around my state! eecummings is not my favorite, but I'm glad he was inspired by April, too. ("a perhaps hand"? LOL -- he makes me laugh)

General Prologue
Here bygynneth the Book of the Tales of Caunterbury

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
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(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;

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400)

"The Canterbury Tales" in Middle English and Modern English

"THE FIREFLY"

Let there be wind, and wood, and
rain,
let fuzzy April come again,
shaking her green head down in grief;
let the moon cry in disbelief,
and black night moan, and wet winds
whine.
Bring back the world that once was
mine,
and take me back in time to be
alone, enchanted, young, and free.
What were the flowers blooming then?
How does the dusty rain smell? When
does April come? And what is spring?
I have forgotten how to sing
and how to walk with naked feet.
I used to know these things. How sweet
my world, a world no longer there.
Bring back the hours, and take me where
I heard the magic word of Quiet--
and spun my dreams of endless night.

A golden firefly came to rest
once on the silky air; it pressed
its light against my trembling lips,
and then flew to my fingertips.
I held it up; I held the night.
And saw the world in its small light.
And then I let it fly away,
and went to live in endless day.
(Jane Stuart)

An april apple from far away tastes like Granny Smith

...and is as sweet?

Here's a tiny snippet from Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 1, Scene 3

O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away!


Thanks Jjorge, for The Firefly... I love those invocations.

Piffka

In my opinion 'The Firefly would have been a better poem without the last stanza which seems, 'over the top' to me.

. . . BUT, that is where the firefly is introduced, so, if the author had not included it, she would have needed a different NAME for the poem!



PS
I love that 'snippet' from TGOV

It is funny, isn't it, how we like certain parts of poems and wonder just why a poet continued when he or she had already done what was needed. I also thought the first part of that poem was definitely the strongest. I think that the firefly really did come to her lips and it gave her one of the moments of the numinous. She felt obliged to tell us!

As a dear artist friend of mine says, "Better is the Enemy of Good!"

perhaps it was too numinous to mention . . .

An old song:

I'll Remember April
This lovely day will lengthen into evening,
We'll sigh good-bye to all we've ever had,
Alone where we have walked together,
I'll remember April and be glad....

I'll be content, you loved me once in April,
Your lips were warm, and love an' spring were new,
But I'm not afraid of autumn, and her sorrow,
For I'll remember, ( I'll remember )
April and you! ( I'll remember )

The fire will dwindle into glowing ashes,
For flames and love live such a little while . . .
I won't forget, but I won't be lonely, ( Oh, no . . . )
I'll remember April, and I'll smile . . .

The fire will dwindle into glowing ashes,
For flames and love live such a little while ( a little while )

I won't forget, but I won't be lonely ( I won't be lonely )
I'll remember April, and I'll smile . . .

I won't forget but I won't be lonely, no . . .
I'll remember April, and I'll smile!

This lovely day will fade away....

~ from the 1942 Western Musical Comedy "Ride 'em Cowboy"
Music by Gene DePaul and lyrics by Patricia Johnston, and Don Raye

http://home.istar.ca/~townsend/pop_standards/ill_remember_april_lyrics.htm

"Song of Songs", posted elsewhere on this site is the typical poetry for Passover ( which happens to fall in April ).

April is what April is . . .
. . . but April is also the promise, and anticipation, of sweeter days to come. . . as in the following poem by Arthur Canfield:



An April Rhyme Of June.
Wind and shadow, wind and shadow
Pass o'er uplands brown and bare;
Violets sleep in the sleeping meadow,
Wings are still in the silent air;
June, O June, art thou anywhere?

Sun and shower, sun and shower,
Last year's nests in the voiceless trees,
Furrowed fields under skies that lower,
Roadsides barren of bloom and bees__
June, O June, art thou born of these?

Yet the presence of some new-comer
Thrills us, a prescience of things to be;
After rain come the scents of summer;
Silence even is prophecy.
June, O June, does it tell of thee?

Lay your ear to the earth and listen!
Hark! the hum of the hosts of spring;
Southward dimly their banners glisten,
Nights the smoke of their camp-fires
bring.
June, thy soul is in everything!
___Arthur Graves Canfield

APRIL
Through the meadow April comes,
Leaving, as he passes,
Companies of daffodils
All among the grasses.
Tulips round about the door,
Ranged in martial order;
Violets in sweet array, Up and down the border.
And beside the lily-pond,
Mindful of its sleepers,
Guards of light frittillaries,
For its fairy keepers.
Sow your fine chrysanthemums
While he blithely passes,
Dahlias too, and thrift, to blow
All among your grasses.

The Young Gardeners' Kalendar (1904): a machine-readable transcription Radford, Dollie (1858-1920) Transcribed and encoded by Felix Jung Edited by Perry Willett TEI formatted filesize uncompressed: approx. 21 kbytes Library Electronic Text Resource Service (LETRS), Indiana University Bloomington, IN October 2, 1995 (c) 1995, The Trustees of Indiana University. Indiana University makes a claim of copyright only to original contributions made by the Victorian Women Writers Project participants and other members of the university community. Indiana University makes no claim of copyright to the original text. Permission is granted to download, transmit or otherwise reproduce, distribute or display the contributions to this work claimed by Indiana University for non-profit educational purposes, provided that this header is included in its entirety. For inquiries about commercial uses, please contact: Library Electronic Text Resource Service Main Library Indiana University Bloomington, IN 47405 United States of America EMail: [email protected]

Wow, New Haven. I just did a little checking and found this from the link below:





Song of Songs

Hey , I composed my own work for April (spring time) !!

I've been waiting all month to post this one from Millay in honor of the I.R.S. and becoming friends with your accountant:

from Second April
SONNETS

I

We talk of taxes, and I call you friend;
Well, such you are,--but well enough we know
How thick about us root, how rankly grow
Those subtle weeds no man has need to tend,
That flourish through neglect, and soon must send
Perfume too sweet upon us and overthrow
Our steady senses; how such matters go
We are aware, and how such matters end.
Yet shall be told no meagre passion here;
With lovers such as we forevermore
Isolde drinks the draught, and Guinevere
Receives the Table's ruin through her door,
Francesca, with the loud surf at her ear,
Lets fall the colored book upon the floor.

Guatam -- do you mean you posted something in the Original Poetry section? ?? Can't you post it here too, just this once? For April's sake?

Jjorge -- those poems are great -- wonderful to read out loud, especially the April Rhyme of June.

piffkas - no I havent posted it here - what I have posted here was abt Autumn. The one abt Spring, well let us say it is not ready to be posted here, it is meant for "someone's" eyes only....

Dunno why I said posted in the previous post...I meant composed...

Okay, I'll try to compose myself. You are so mysterious.

Here's an interesting poem which ties in with the Song of Songs:


A Spring Song
Mathilde Blind

Dark sod pierced by flames of flowers,
Dead wood freshly quickening,
Bright skies dusked with sudden showers,
Lit by rainbows on the wing.

Cuckoo calls and young lambs' bleating,
Nimble airs which coyly bring
Little gusts of tender greeting
From shy nooks where violets cling.

Half-fledged buds and birds and vernal
Fields of grass dew-glistening;
Evanescent life's eternal
Resurrection, bridal Spring!

Home Thoughts, From Abroad
Robert Browning

O