Last year, the speaker watched a robin singing high in an elm and felt such overflowing joy that its red breast seemed about to break open with gladness. Now the same spring sound returns, but the speaker cannot welcome it. The song is still “sweet and strong,” yet hearing it hurts. The red breast that once looked like joy now suggests an open wound, and the fresh leaves around last year’s nest make renewal feel almost insensitive. The speaker’s unanswered questions are not really about the robin. They express a human grief: spring keeps coming back faithfully, but the heart cannot. The title calls April “unfaithful” because its beauty returns unchanged while the speaker’s world has not healed. The mood is wistful, alienated, and quietly sorrowful.
The Unfaithful April — Summary
I saw a robin last year, I heard him fill his throat High in the trembling elm tree With note on gallant note. So splendidly his red breast Went flashing in the dew, I thought beneath his glad wings His heart had broken through.
I hear the robin this year, His voice is sweet and strong, But I can not give him welcome Nor listen to his song. How can he bear the new leaves Around his last year's nest? How can he sing with old wounds Still red upon his breast?