You May Also Like / View all maxioms
April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
read more
April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
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.
Oh, the lovely fickleness of an April day!
Oh, the lovely fickleness of an April day!
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.
Again the blackbirds sings; the streams
Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams,
And tremble in the April read more
Again the blackbirds sings; the streams
Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams,
And tremble in the April showers
The tassels of the maple 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.
Old April wanes, and her last dewy morn
Her death-bed steeps in tears; to hail the May
read more
Old April wanes, and her last dewy morn
Her death-bed steeps in tears; to hail the May
New blooming blossoms 'neath the sun are born,
And all poor April's charms are swept away.
The first of April, some do say
Is set apart for All Fools' day;
But why the read more
The first of April, some do say
Is set apart for All Fools' day;
But why the people call it so,
Nor I, nor they themselves, do know.