An April Day

When the warm sun, that brings
Seed-time and harvest, has returned again,
'T is sweet to visit the still wood, where springs
The first flower of the plain.

I love the season well,
When forst glades are teeming with bright forms,
Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell
The coming-on of storms.

Form the earth's loosened could
The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrive;
Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold,
The drooping tree revives.

The softly-warbled song

Comes from the pleasen woods, and colored wings
Glance quick in the bright sun, that moves along
The forest openings.

When the bright sunset fulls
The silver woods with light, the green slope throws
Its shadows in the hollows of the hills,
And wide the upland glows.

And when the eve is born,
In the blue lake the sky, o'er-reaching far,
Is hollowed out and the moon dips her horn,
And twinkles many a star.

Inverted in the tide
Stand the gray rocks, and trembling shadows throw,
And the fair trees look over, side by side
And see themselves below.

Sweet April! many a though
Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed;
Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought,
Life's golden fruit is shed.


By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow