Longfellow’s speaker welcomes the warm sun with genuine affection, calling it sweet to visit the woods where the first flower breaks through. There’s a deep, quiet love for this season of bright forest glades, still free of storm clouds. We watch sap rising in saplings, a winter-stricken tree reviving, and hear soft birdsong while wings flicker through sunlight. The landscape at sunset—silver woods, green slopes throwing shadows, glowing uplands—is drawn with careful delight. Evening brings the sky mirrored in the lake, the moon’s crescent, stars, and rocks and trees peering at their own reflections. Every image feels intimate and joyful. The final lines shift inward: thoughts are “wedded” to April, like married hearts, lasting until life’s own autumn sheds its golden fruit. That quiet turn adds a touch of gentle melancholy, a recognition that this seasonal beauty is also a lifelong companion. The mood is serene, attentive, and deeply tender—a celebration of renewal threaded with an awareness of time passing.
An April Day — Summary
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 forest glades are teeming with bright forms, Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell The coming-on of storms.
From the earth's loosened mould The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives; Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold, The drooping tree revives.
The softly-warbled song Comes from the pleasant woods, and colored wings Glance quick in the bright sun, that moves along The forest openings.
When the bright sunset fills 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 thought Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed; Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought, Life's golden fruit is shed.