Sweet April-time--O cruel April-time!
Year after year returning, with a brow
Of promise, and red lips with read more

Sweet April-time--O cruel April-time!
Year after year returning, with a brow
Of promise, and red lips with longing paled,
And backward-hidden hands that clutch the joys
Of vanished springs, like flowers.

Sweet April showers
Do bring May flowers.

Sweet April showers
Do bring May flowers.

For April sobs while these are so glad
April weeps while these are so gay,--
Weeps like read more

For April sobs while these are so glad
April weeps while these are so gay,--
Weeps like a tired child who had,
Playing with flowers, lost its way.

The April winds are magical,
And thrill our tuneful frames;
The garden-walks are passional
read more

The April winds are magical,
And thrill our tuneful frames;
The garden-walks are passional
To bachelors and dames.

The lyric sound of laughter
Fills all the April hills
The joy-song of the crocus,
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The lyric sound of laughter
Fills all the April hills
The joy-song of the crocus,
The mirth of daffodils.

She who from April dates her years,
Diamonds should wear, lest bitter tears
For vain repentance flow; read more

She who from April dates her years,
Diamonds should wear, lest bitter tears
For vain repentance flow; this stone,
Emblem of innocence is known.

Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas
Of wheat, rye, barley, fetches, oats, and pease;
Thy turfy read more

Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas
Of wheat, rye, barley, fetches, oats, and pease;
Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,
And flat meads thatched with stover, them to keep;
Thy banks with pioned and twilled brims,
Which spongy April at thy hest betrims
To make cold nymphs chaste crowns; and thy broom groves,
Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves,
Being lasslorn; thy pole-clipt vineyard;
And thy sea-marge, sterile and rocky-hard,
Where thou thyself dost air--the queen o' th' sky,
Whose wat-ry arch and messenger am I,
Bids thee leave these, and with her sovereign grace,
Here on this grass-plot, in this very place,
To come and sport: her peacocks fly amain.
Approach, rich Ceres, her to entertain.

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
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From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leapt with him;
Yet nor the lays of birds, not the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odor and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seemed it winter still, and you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.

A gush of bird-song, a patter of dew,
A cloud, and a rainbow's warning,
Suddenly sunshine and read more

A gush of bird-song, a patter of dew,
A cloud, and a rainbow's warning,
Suddenly sunshine and perfect blue--
An April day in the morning.