April again! with a wet wind blowing, And along the western sky a pathway of gold; Sounds a call to follow the road we're not knowing, A new road--a wild road--o'er fairy lands unrolled,-- "April again!"
April again! with its wonder of gladness, April with its haunting joy, and swift-stinging tears,-- Month of mist and music, and the old moon-madness, Month of magic fluting, the spirit only hears,-- "April again!"
I weary of the histories of men-- The garnered store of books in grim array; Life's bitter salvage, leather-bound, and then Left to the silence and a bloom of gray.
I weary of the stories that they hold; The clash of arms sounds through them like a knell; I weary of the Kings in crowns of gold, The Kings victorious, and the Kings who fell.
There are too many tears on every page; Too red a tide sweeps every chapter in; There is no word of peace in any age, Except the peace that death rode forth to win.
And old unhappiness, long wrapped in sleep, And thrice-armed feud that passed in wrath and woe, And white despair from many a dungeon keep, Arise to haunt us still, where'er we go.
Yet through the years the sun was warm and sweet, And pipers piped at morn, and night and noon,-- And there was carnival with dancing feet, And love and joyance always came in June,--
O, to remember when the pages close-- Linked with the vision of the deathless brave,-- The nightingale, the moonlight, and the rose, And all the beauty that the lost years gave!
True lovers' words are deathless things; Eros, the little god, and wise, Catches them all,--gives to them wings, And turns them into fireflies!
Words that are sweet as a caress, And wild, bright words no will can tame; Soft words of haunting tenderness,-- Words that are like a blue-white flame.
The magic word, the jewelled word, The word that hides a thousand fears,-- These all the perfumed winds have heard, Through all the immemorial years!
Not one is lost;--by old sea walls, And over beds of mignonette, And through lost lanes,--when darkness falls, In loveliness they sparkle yet.
Then down the velvet sea of night, Like little lighted ships asail, They pass away, and out of sight,-- Companioned by the nightingale.
I grieve to think the little gods have vanished,-- The half-gods with the vine-leaves in their hair; I sorrow much the goat-foot Pan is banished, And that the Dryads are not anywhere.