KINGS' wares; and dreams; and April dusks
Out in the golden dew,
One sighing in a secret lane;—
These wrought the look of you.
God made you out of lonely things;
To set you at our door,
He tumbled down into the dark
A hundred towns or more.
The maid is out in the clear April light
Our store of linen hanging up to dry;
On clump of box, on the small grass there lie
Bits of thin lace, and broidery blossom-white.
And something makes tall Ellen — gesture, look —
Or else but that most ancient, simple thing,
Hanging the clothes upon a day in spring,
A Greek girl cut out some old lovely book.
The wet white flaps ; a tune just come in mind,
The sound brims the still house. Our flags are out,
Blue by the box, blue by the kitchen stair;
Betwixt the two she trips across the wind,
Her warm hair blown all cloudy-wise about,
Slim as the flags, and every whit as fair.
On such a day as this I think,
On such a day as this,
When earth and sky and nature's whole
Are clad in April's bliss;
And balmy zephyrs gently waft
Upon your cheek a kiss;
Sufficient is it just to live
On such a day as this.
How shall I keep April
When my songs are done —
How can I be silent
And still feel the sun?
I, who dreaded silence,
I, who April-long
Kept my heart from breaking
With the cry of song.
How can I hold sunlight
In my hands, like gold.
And bear the pain of silence
When my songs are old?
Who would fear death when there is April?
Like a flame, like a song,
To heal all who have lived with yearning
Year-through, life-long.
When there is April with fulfilment
For longing and for pain.
For every reaching hand that beauty
Has lured in vain.
Who would shrink from the earth when April
With slim rain hands shall reach
Through the doors of dark, and call them
Who love her speech.
Now I am Life's victim —
Cruel victor is he
Who lashes me with colour
Until I ache to see.
Who chokes me with fragrance
Of green things in the rain —
Like a hand around my throat
So sudden is the pain.
Life, I am at your mercy ;
And though till I am dead
You torture me with April
I will not bow my head!
So long as there is April
My heart is high,
Lifting up its white dreams
To the sky.
As trees hold up their blossoms
In a blowing cloud,
My hands are reaching.
My hands are proud.
All the crumbled splendours
Of autumn, and the cries
Of winds that I remember
Cannot make me wise.
Like the trees of April
Fearless and fair —
My heart swings its censers
Through the golden air.
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.
The larger streams run still and deep,
Noisy and swift the small brooks run
Among the mullein stalks the sheep
Go up the hillside in the sun,
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots,
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
After the last red sunset glimmer.
Black on the line of a low hill rise,
Formed into moving shadows, I saw
A plowboy and two horses lined against the gray,
Plowing in the dusk the last furrow.
The turf had a gleam of brown,
And smell of soil was in the air.
And, cool and moist, a haze of April.
I shall remember you long,
Plowboy and horses against the sky in shadow.
I shall remember you and the picture
You made for me.
Turning the turf in the dusk
And haze of an April gloaming.
A canyon of granite and steel,
A river of grim unrest,
And over the fever and street-dust
Arches the azure of dream.
And fretting along the tumult,
Threading the iron curbs,
Tawdry in tinsel and feather
Drift the daughters of pleasure,
The sad-eyed traders in song,
The makers of joy,
The Columbines of the city
Seeking their ends!
But under the beaded eye-lash,
Under the lip with its rouge,
Under the mask of white
Splashed with geranium-red,
"The sting of it all," you said, as you stooped low over your roses,
"The worst of it is, when I think of Death,
That Spring by Spring the Earth shall still be beautiful,
And Summer by Summer be lovely again,
--And I shall be gone!"
"I would not care, perhaps," you said, watching your roses,
"If only 'twere dust and ruin and emptiness left behind!
But the thought that Earth and April
Year by casual year
Shall waken around the old ways, soft and beautiful,
Year by year when I am away,
--This, this breaks my heart!"