Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
April
When April winds
Grew soft, the maple burst into a flush
Of scarlet flowers. The tulip tree, high up,
Opened in airs of June her multitude
Of golden chalices to humming birds
And silken-wing’d insects of the sky.
Bryant—The Fountain.
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.
Clare—The Village Minstrel and Other Poems. The Last of April.
Every tear is answered by a blossom,
Every sigh with songs and laughter blent,
Apple-blooms upon the breezes toss them.
April knows her own, and is content.
Susan Coolidge—April.
Now the noisy winds are still;
April’s coming up the hill!
All the spring is in her train,
Led by shining ranks of rain;
Pit, pat, patter, clatter,
Sudden sun and clatter patter!
*****
All things ready with a will,
April’s coming up the hill!
Mary Mapes Dodge—Now the Noisy Winds are Still.
The April winds are magical,
And thrill our tuneful frames;
The garden-walks are passional
To bachelors and dames.
Emerson—April.
Oh, the lovely fickleness of an April day!
W. H. Gibson—Pastoral Days. Spring.
Make me over, Mother April,
When the sap begins to stir!
When thy flowery hand delivers
All the mountain-prisoned rivers,
And thy great heart beats and quivers,
To revive the days that were.
Richard Hovey—April.
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.
Helen Hunt Jackson—Verses. April.
The children with the streamlets sing,
When April stops at last her weeping;
And every happy growing thing
Laughs like a babe just roused from sleeping.
Lucy Larcom—The Sister Months.
I love the season well
When forest glades are teeming with bright forms,
Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell
The coming on of storms.
Longfellow—An April Day. L. 6.
Sweet April! many a thought
Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed;
Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought,
Life’s golden fruit is shed.
Longfellow—An April Day. St. 8.
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.
D. M. Mulock—April.
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.
Poor Robin’s Almanac. (1760). All Fools’ Day.
The lyric sound of laughter
Fills all the April hills,
The joy-song of the crocus,
The mirth of daffodils.
Clinton Scollard—April Music.
When well apparell’d April on the heel
Of limping winter treads.
Romeo and Juliet. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 27.
When proud-pied April dress’d in all his trim
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything.
Sonnet XCVIII.
Spongy April.
Tempest. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 65.
Sweet April’s tears,
Dead on the hem of May
Alex. Smith—A Life Drama. Sc. 8. L. 308.
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.
Harriet Prescott Spofford—April.
Sweet April showers
Do bring May flowers.
Tusser—Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. Ch. XXXIX.
Again the blackbirds sing; the streams
Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams,
And tremble in the April showers
The tassels of the maple flowers.
Whittier—The Singer. St. 20.