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by
Emily Dickinson
Not at Home to Callers
Not at Home to Callers
Says the Naked Tree --
Bonnet due in April --
Wishing you Good Day --
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by
Emily Dickinson
Spring comes on the World --
Spring comes on the World --
I sight the Aprils --
Hueless to me until thou come
As, till the Bee
Blossoms stand negative,
Touched to Conditions
By a Hum.
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by
Emily Dickinson
Spring is the Period
Spring is the Period
Express from God.
Among the other seasons
Himself abide,
But during March and April
None stir abroad
Without a cordial interview
With God.
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by
David Lehman
April 26
When my father
Said mein Fehler
I thought it meant
"I'm a failure"
which was my error
which is what
mein Fehler means
in German which
is what my parents
spoke at home
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by
Emily Dickinson
Absent Place -- an April Day --
Absent Place -- an April Day --
Daffodils a-blow
Homesick curiosity
To the Souls that snow --
Drift may block within it
Deeper than without --
Daffodil delight but
Him it duplicate --
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by
April Is The Saddest Month
There they were
stuck
dog and bitch
halving the compass
Then when with his yip
they parted
oh how frolicsome
she grew before him
playful
dancing and
how disconsolate
he retreated
hang-dog
she following
through the shrubbery
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by
Sara Teasdale
But Not To Me
The April night is still and sweet
With flowers on every tree;
Peace comes to them on quiet feet,
But not to me.
My peace is hidden in his breast
Where I shall never be;
Love comes to-night to all the rest,
But not to me.
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by
Ogden Nash
Always Marry An April Girl
Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true --
I love April, I love you.
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by
Emily Dickinson
Pink -- small -- and punctual --
Pink -- small -- and punctual --
Aromatic -- low --
Covert -- in April --
Candid -- in May --
Dear to the Moss --
Known to the Knoll --
Next to the Robin
In every human Soul --
Bold little Beauty
Bedecked with thee
Nature forswears
Antiquity --
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by
Robert Herrick
THE SUCCESSION OF THE FOUR SWEET MONTHS
First, April, she with mellow showers
Opens the way for early flowers;
Then after her comes smiling May,
In a more rich and sweet array;
Next enters June, and brings us more
Gems than those two that went before;
Then, lastly, July comes, and she
More wealth brings in than all those three.
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by
Sara Teasdale
Gray Eyes
It was April when you came
The first time to me,
And my first look in your eyes
Was like my first look at the sea.
We have been together
Four Aprils now
Watching for the green
On the swaying willow bough;
Yet whenever I turn
To your gray eyes over me,
It is as though I looked
For the first time at the sea.
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by
Emily Dickinson
The Robin is the One
The Robin is the One
That interrupt the Morn
With hurried -- few -- express Reports
When March is scarcely on --
The Robin is the One
That overflow the Noon
With her cherubic quantity --
An April but begun --
The Robin is the One
That speechless from her Nest
Submit that Home -- and Certainty
And Sanctity, are best
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by
Sylvia Plath
Child
Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new
Whose name you meditate --
April snowdrop, Indian pipe,
Little
Stalk without wrinkle,
Pool in which images
Should be grand and classical
Not this troublous
Wringing of hands, this dark
Ceiling without a star.
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by
Emily Dickinson
His Mansion in the Pool
His Mansion in the Pool
The Frog forsakes --
He rises on a Log
And statements makes --
His Auditors two Worlds
Deducting me --
The Orator of April
Is hoarse Today --
His Mittens at his Feet
No Hand hath he --
His eloquence a Bubble
As Fame should be --
Applaud him to discover
To your chagrin
Demosthenes has vanished
In Waters Green --
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by
Robert Frost
Blue-Butterfly Day
It is blue-butterfly day here in spring,
And with these sky-flakes down in flurry on flurry
There is more unmixed color on the wing
Than flowers will show for days unless they hurry.
But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:
And now from having ridden out desire
They lie closed over in the wind and cling
Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.
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by
John Gould Fletcher
Take, Oh Take Those Lips Away
Take, oh take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn,
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn:
But my kisses bring again,
Seals of love, but sealed in vain.
Hide, oh hide those hills of snow,
Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow
Are yet of those that April wears.
But first set my poor heart free,
Bound in those icy chains by thee.
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by
William Henry Davies
Laughing Rose
If I were gusty April now,
How I would blow at laughing Rose;
I'd make her ribbons slip their knots,
And all her hair come loose.
If I were merry April now,
How I would pelt her cheeks with showers;
I'd make carnations, rich and warm,
Of her vermillion flowers.
Since she will laugh in April's face
No matter how he rains or blows --
Then O that I wild April were,
To play with laughing Rose.
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by
Robert Browning
You'll love me yet!—and I can tarry
You'll love me yet!—and I can tarry
Your love's protracted growing:
June reared that bunch of flowers you carry
From seeds of April's sowing.
I plant a heartful now: some seed
At least is sure to strike,
And yield—what you'll not pluck indeed,
Not love, but, may be, like!
You'll look at least on love's remains,
A grave's one violet:
Your look?—that pays a thousand pains.
What's death?—You'll love me yet!
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by
Duncan Campbell Scott
Afterwards
Her life was touched with early frost,
About the April of her day,
Her hold on earth was lightly lost,
And like a leaf she went away.
Her soul was chartered for great deeds,
For gentle war unwonted here:
Her spirit sought her clearer needs,
An Empyrean atmosphere.
At hush of eve we hear her still
Say with her clear, her perfect smile,
And with her silver-throated thrill:
"A little while - a little while."
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by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Marzo Pazzo
Mad March, with the wind in his wings wide-spread,
Leaps from heaven, and the deep dawn's arch
Hails re-risen again from the dead
Mad March.
Soft small flames on rowan and larch
Break forth as laughter on lips that said
Nought till the pulse in them beat love's march.
But the heartbeat now in the lips rose-red
Speaks life to the world, and the winds that parch
Bring April forth as a bride to wed
Mad March.
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by
Claude McKay
Spring in New Hampshire
Too green the springing April grass,
Too blue the silver-speckled sky,
For me to linger here, alas,
While happy winds go laughing by,
Wasting the golden hours indoors,
Washing windows and scrubbing floors.
Too wonderful the April night,
Too faintly sweet the first May flowers,
The stars too gloriously bright,
For me to spend the evening hours,
When fields are fresh and streams are leaping,
Wearied, exhausted, dully sleeping.
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by
Sara Teasdale
Houses Of Dreams
You took my empty dreams
And filled them every one
With tenderness and nobleness,
April and the sun.
The old empty dreams
Where my thoughts would throng
Are far too full of happiness
To even hold a song.
Oh, the empty dreams were dim
And the empty dreams were wide,
They were sweet and shadowy houses
Where my thoughts could hide.
But you took my dreams away
And you made them all come true --
My thoughts have no place now to play,
And nothing now to do.
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by
Richard Brautigan
To England
There are no postage stamps that send letters
back to England three centuries ago,
no postage stamps that make letters
travel back until the grave hasn't been dug yet,
and John Donne stands looking out the window,
it is just beginning to rain this April morning,
and the birds are falling into the trees
like chess pieces into an unplayed game,
and John Donne sees the postman coming up the street,
the postman walks very carefully because his cane
is made of glass.
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by
Carl Sandburg
Just Before April Came
THE SNOW piles in dark places are gone.
Pools by the railroad tracks shine clear.
The gravel of all shallow places shines.
A white pigeon reels and somersaults.
Frogs plutter and squdge—and frogs beat the air with a recurring thin steel sliver of melody.
Crows go in fives and tens; they march their black feathers past a blue pool; they celebrate an old festival.
A spider is trying his webs, a pink bug sits on my hand washing his forelegs.
I might ask: Who are these people?
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by
Carl Sandburg
The Plowboy
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.
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