April

“ Our April, at its best, is a bright, laughing face under a hood of snow, like the English March, but presenting sharper contrasts, a greater mixture of smiles and tears and icy looks than are known to our ancestral climate. ”

“ The affections of a boy grow up with tears to water them; and the year blooms with showers. But the clouds hover over an April sky timidly, like shadows upon innocence. The showers come gently, and drop daintily to the earth,—with now and then a glimpse of sunshine to make the drops bright—like so many tears of joy.
The rain of winter is cold, and it comes in bitter scuds that blind you; but the rain of April steals upon you coyly, half reluctantly,—yet lovingly—like the steps of a bride to the Altar. ”

“ April’s sunshine, April’s rain,
April ne’er to come again.
Boyhood! sun-kiss’d summer hours,
Fragrant with a thousand flowers,
Smiling ’neath a tearless sky,
Chasing life’s bright butterfly.
Manhood! ”

“ March may be colder, but the first day of Spring is marked on its calendar; and we wait for it like we wait for a lover—a lover in whose embrace we may not yet be, but who is, as it were, downstairs washing his hands, he has arrived, he is here—and so we can endure the suspense of waiting for him with a grin. April may fill the dykes fuller than February, whose skies are supposed to weep all day long, but generally only succeed in dribbling, but April belongs to Spring—even though our face and hands and feet are still in Mid-Winter. ”

“ WHEN April bends above me
⁠And finds me fast asleep,
Dust need not keep the secret
⁠A live heart died to keep.
When April tells the thrushes,
⁠The meadow-larks will know,
And pipe the three words lightly
⁠To all the winds that blow. ”

“ But April this year is an incongruous sort of an April, though the incongruity is possibly only in one’s own fancy. We are apt to fashion our notions of the becoming, and to expect Nature to conform to them. A desperately dry April it certainly is. The days are hard, and cold, parched, and nipping; at night the wind howls, but with no accompaniment of desirable drops. The garden cries to the sky for rain, but no rain falls upon it, yet the only days I have spent in London were days of unceasing downpour. Such favouring of the Metropolis at the expense of the country is manifestly unjust. ”

“ An April morning follows, spring walks upon the dunes, but ocean lingers on the edge of winter. Day after day the April sun pours an increasing splendour on the ocean plain, a hard, bright splendour of light, but the Atlantic mirror drinks no warmth. A chance cloud upon the sun, a shadow, and the sea of an instant returns to February. No shadow of cloud may do the same upon the dunes. Under this April light the mound and landward slopes of the great wall have put on a strange and lovely colour which lies upon them with the delicacy of a reflection in a pool. ”

“ One characteristic April feature, and one that delights me very much, is the perfect emerald of the spring runs while the fields are yet brown and sere,—strips and patches of the most vivid velvet green on the slopes and in the valleys. ”

“ The veil from April's face.
Sweet, rosy April—laughing, sighing, waiting
Until the gateway swings,
And she and Lent can kiss between the grating
Of Easter's tissue wings.
Too brief the bliss—the parting comes with sorrow. ”

“ With the first hot shafts of April’s sun it startles into bloom, shaken out in snow-wreaths all over the tree, a waste of most lavish loveliness. It is something gained, once in the twelvemonth’s round of commonplace, if only for a moment to stand beside a Cherry tree in blossom. The blue sky looks infinitely far off, seen through such a maze of flowery myriads. ”

“ My eyes are faithful, grieving with your grief;
And if the year itself could grow not old,
Could stand at waking sap and budding leaf,
An April heart might keep its first unrest,
An April love the petals of its spring.
When all the birds are silent in my breast,
How can I answer when you bid me sing?
The autumn hills are brown: you will not see.
The saddened woodland speaks, and finds you strange.
Ah, dear one, all my world is kin to me,
And with the swerving days I change, I change. ”

“ May and June and October,
As you call and call
I must remember
What died into April
And consider what will be born
Of a fair November;
And April I love for what
It was born of, and November
For what it will die in,
What they are and what they are not,
While you love what is kind,
What you can sing in
And love and forget in
All that's ahead and behind. ”

“ SPINNING IN APRIL 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! ”

“ The house still stands, but the April of its glory
Is gone, long since, with the beauty that has gone;
She wandered away west, it is an old sad story:
It is best not talked upon.
And the man has gone, too, but the quarry that he made,
Whenever April comes as it came in old time,
Is a dear delight to the man who loves a maid,
For the primose comes from the lime....
And the blackbird builds below the catkin shaking,
And the sweet white violets are beauty in the blood,
And daffodils are there, and the blackthorn blossom breaking
Is a wild white beauty in bud. ”

“ Tulips gorgeous to behold;
Lilies, for our Lady's sake,
White as snow, May's posies make.
Then let March and April go,
Nor let gentle ladies sigh:
Though their blossoms fade and die,
Others will as dainty show. ”

“ SONG OF A SECOND APRIL April this year, not otherwise Than April of a year ago, Is full of whispers, full of sighs, Of dazzling mud and dingy snow; Hepaticas that pleased you so Are here again, and butterflies. There rings a hammering all day, And shingles lie about the doors; In orchards near and far away The grey wood-pecker taps and bores; The men are merry at their chores, And children earnest at their play. ”

“ 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. ”

“ March shewed some pale gleams of spring, but April was one of the coldest and dreariest in the memory of living man. The old earth in sympathy with the great struggle that was devastating and searing her, seemed to be withholding leaf and flower, and forbidding the sun to woo her. ”

“ April is such a lovely word, that it ought also to be always a lovely thing. If one imagines it—or rather her—as she might appear to us in dreams, or an allegory, we should deck her out of course in the tenderest green. ”

“ Time after time, until now, a shadow of doubt has crossed our paths, when we gathered early bloom. The wail of winter winds still sounded in every passing breeze, although we plucked violets from the greensward beneath budding trees. Too often, in April, we are over-confident; but there is little danger of disaster now. Apple-blossoms are the first assuring gift of fruitful summer. Grim winter is powerless now, to wound us. Tricksy April can play no heartless pranks.
What summer sound is more suggestive than the hum of bees? Certainly not even the song of the returning birds. ”

“ If you fix your eyes upon a distant hill in the month of April, in some countries, or May in others, there are a thousand chances to one, unless the goddess of the spring be very much out of humour, that you see first a golden gleam warm, as the looks of love, and next a deep blue shadow, calm and grand as the thoughts of high intellect when passion has passed away with youth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ April’s woods are teeming with all forms of life, if one will only look for them. On every side the ferns, curled up all winter in their dormant sleep, unroll their spiral sprays, and reach out for the welcome sun. ”

“ There is that in June which has a time-defying magic: May has her sweet affinities with Spring in the human heart: in April are the flutes of Pan: March is stormy with the clarions of the winds: October can be wild with all wildness or be the calm mirror of the passing of the loveliness of the green-world. ”

“ April sits throned upon the hills, weeping as she smiles in the blue distance, and trying on her veil of misty sunshine, after a hundred fantastic fashions, like a spoiled child; and April, Menie Laurie—April, restless, fearless, springing forward on the future, gladdening all this bright to-day with a breath of rippling sweet commotion, which dimples all the surface over, but never disturbs the deeper waters at their fountain-head—is in your youthful heart. ”

“ She will have a spirit brave and yet tender, a mind broad and capable yet without arrogance, a temperament attuning itself to each passing mood, sunny, shadowed, merry, pensive, adventurous, timid—all as full of sweet little turns and twists and unexpected things in general as an April day. ”

“ For the mistress of Tansonville knew that April, even an ice-bound April was not barren of flowers, that winter, spring, summer are not held apart by barriers as hermetic as might be supposed by the town-dweller who, until the first hot day, imagines the world as containing nothing but houses that stand naked in the rain. ”

“ But the blustering days of March give way in due time to showery April, and then, with more courage, "chip" faces the music of the winds, blow they from whatever quarter, and darting along the top rail of our zigzag fences, chatters, scolds, and calls at and to his equally noisy companions. ”

“ It is enough to bask there in the sunlight on the ground beside them, drinking in their odor, feasting the eye on their tints and forms, hearing the April breezes sigh and murmur in the pines or hemlocks near you, living in a present fragrant with the memory of other days. Lying there, half dreaming, half observing, if you are not in communion with the very soul of spring, then there is a want of soul in you. ”

“ Despite the many wet and gusty days which April had thrust in rude challenge upon reluctant May, in the glory of the triumphant sun which flooded the concave blue of heaven and the myriad shaded green of earth, the whole world knew to-day, the whole world proclaimed that spring had come. ”

“ But April with its sudden showers, which eventually do bring forth the May flowers, we hail with hope; and are only too happy to leave behind us, as a pleasant remembrance, the more sombre, frozen charms of winter. ”

“ Open; that I may laugh, and lightly take
All air of early April in one hour.
But brown curls, O shadow me with curls,
Full of September mist, half-gleam, half-glower,
And I shall roam warm nights in lands far south. ”

“ April 8, 1805.
‘My dear Cassandra,—Here is a day for you. Did Bath or Ibthorp ever see such an 8th of April? It is March and April together; the glare of the one and the warmth of the other. We do nothing but walk about. As far as your means will admit, I hope you profit by such weather too. I dare say you are already the better for change of place. ”

“ In April we can detect, too, the earliest flowers, and they fit well with the songs of the forerunning birds. There is more, I think, for all of us in an April violet than in a June rose; in a sheltered bit of turf with sprouting grass than in the wide pastures a month later. We do not hurry in-doors at the sudden coming of an April shower. The rain-drops that cling to the opening leaf-buds are too near real gems not to be 81fancied a veritable gift to us, and we toy with the baubles for the brief moment that they are ours. ”

“ You can be winter with a cheerful hearth; You can be March, bitter, bright and hard, Pouring sharp sleet, and showering cutting hail; You can be April of the flying cloud, And intermittent sun and musical air. ”

“ The whole essay breathes of swelling buds, springing grass, calls of birds, April flowers, April odors, and April's uncloying freshness and charm. As we realize what the returning spring brings to this writer, we say with Bliss Carman:—
"Make (him) over. Mother April, When the sap begins to stir."
I fancy there are many of his readers who will echo what one of his friends has said to him: "For me the 3d of April will ever stand apart in the calendar with a poignant beauty and sweetness because it is your birthday. It is the keynote to which the whole springtime music is set." ”

“ Early April sees the last contest which winter wages for supremacy, and often it is a half-hearted attempt; but after the army of the North has retreated, with its icicles and snowdrifts, spring seems dazed for a while. Victory has been dearly bought, and April is the season when, for a time, the trees and insects hang fire—paralysed—while the chill is thawing from their marrow. Our northern visitors of the bird world slip quietly away. ”