The speaker begins by remembering what he once considered the loveliest thing in all creation: an early April morning when mist clears, sunlight spills across wet grass and primroses, and the air feels warmer and richer than any oven’s heat. The cuckoo and nightingale call out, and he could only murmur a blessing on it all. That memory has a hushed, reverent tenderness. Then he shifts to a new, deeper sweetness. Emily, weeping, turned back to him — not because she had done anything wrong, but to ask forgiveness for something unknown, something she’d already forgotten. Her tearful, uncertain smile, half expecting pardon, swept him far beyond any care, as if they stood on an island more beautiful than April itself. The mood is intimate and quietly radiant: human forgiveness and love, fragile and unearned, outshine even nature’s finest moment.
April — Summary
THE sweetest thing, I thought At one time, between earth and heaven Was the first smile When mist has been forgiven And the sun has stolen out, Peered, and resolved to shine at seven On dabbled lengthening grasses, Thick primroses and early leaves uneven, When earth's breath, warm and humid, far sur- passes The richest oven's, and loudly rings "cuckoo" And sharply the nightingale's "tsoo, tsoo, tsoo, tsoo": To say "God bless it" was all that I could do.
But now I know one sweeter By far since the day Emily Turned weeping back To me, still happy me, To ask forgiveness,-- Yet smiled with half a certainty To be forgiven,--for what She had never done; I knew not what it might be, Nor could she tell me, having now forgot, By rapture carried with me past all care As to an isle in April lovelier Than April's self. "God bless you" I said to her.