| Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (1869–1948). The Second Book of Modern Verse. 1922. |
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| April on the Battlefields |
| | | Leonora Speyer |
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| APRIL now walks the fields again, | |
| Trailing her tearful leaves | |
| And holding all her frightened buds against her heart: | |
| Wrapt in her clouds and mists, | |
| She walks, | 5 |
| Groping her way among the graves of men. | |
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| The green of earth is differently green, | |
| A dreadful knowledge trembles in the grass, | |
| And little wide-eyed flowers die too soon: | |
| There is a stillness here— | 10 |
| After a terror of all raving sounds— | |
| And birds sit close for comfort upon the boughs | |
| Of broken trees. | |
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| April, thou grief! | |
| What of thy sun and glad, high wind, | 15 |
| Thy valiant hills and woods and eager brooks, | |
| Thy thousand-petalled hopes? | |
| The sky forbids thee sorrow, April! | |
| And yet— | |
| I see thee walking listlessly | 20 |
| Across those scars that once were joyous sod, | |
| Those graves, | |
| Those stepping-stones from life to life. | |
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| Death is an interruption between two heart-beats, | |
| That I know— | 25 |
| Yet know not how I know— | |
| But April mourns, | |
| Trailing her tender green, | |
| The passion of her green, | |
| Across the passion of those fearful fields. | 30 |
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| Yes, all the fields! | |
| No barrier here, | |
| No challenge in the night, | |
| No stranger-land; | |
| She passes with her perfect countersign, | 35 |
| Her green; | |
| She wanders in her mournful garden, | |
| Dropping her buds like tears, | |
| Spreading her lovely grief upon the graves of man. | |
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