Not only is April National Poetry Month, but there are countless poems about the month of April itself! I decided to compile some of my favorite poetic lines about April. Whether this is your favorite time of year or the beginnings of Spring remind you of your own mortality, there is an April poem for you.
1. “April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain.”
– T.S. Eliot, “The Wasteland”
2. “It was an April morning: fresh and clear
The Rivulet, delighting in its strength,
Ran with a young man’s speed; and yet the voice
Of waters which the winter had supplied
Was softened down into a vernal tone.”
– William Wordsworth, “It Was An April Morning: Fresh And Clear”
3. “It was too strong in the air.
I had no rest against that
Springtime!”
– William Carlos Williams, “April”
4. “But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave
Or on the wealth of globed peonies”
– John Keats, “Ode On Melancholy”
Source: Paul-Vincent Roll
5. “You the dancer and I the dreamer,
Children together,
Wandering lost in the night of London,
In the miraculous April weather.”
– Arthur Symons, “April Midnight”
6. “What stays thee from the clouded noons,
Thy sweetness from its proper place?
Can trouble live with April days,
Or sadness in the summer moons? “
– Alfred Lord Tennyson, “In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 83”
7. “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 leaped with him.”
– William Shakespeare, Sonnet 98
Whether April is the most beautiful or the most painful month, it may just be the most poetic, so go read, write, and enjoy some poetry.
Thumbnail source: Maria Conan
None of the images used belong to the author or Her Campus UC Davis.