A Poem for Every Spring Day Read online

  Listen, my children, and you shall hear

  Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

  On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;

  Hardly a man is now alive

  Who remembers that famous day and year.

  He said to his friend, ‘If the British march

  By land or sea from the town to-night,

  Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch

  Of the North Church tower as a signal light,—

  One, if by land, and two, if by sea;

  And I on the opposite shore will be,

  Ready to ride and spread the alarm

  Through every Middlesex village and farm,

  For the country folk to be up and to arm.’

  Then he said, ‘Good night!’ and with muffled oar

  Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,

  Just as the moon rose over the bay,

  Where swinging wide at her moorings lay

  The Somerset, British man-of-war;

  A phantom ship, with each mast and spar

  Across the moon like a prison bar,

  And a huge black hulk, that was magnified

  By its own reflection in the tide.

  Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street,

  Wanders and watches with eager ears,

  Till in the silence around him he hears

  The muster of men at the barrack door,

  The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,

  And the measured tread of the grenadiers,

  Marching down to their boats on the shore.

  Then he climbed the tower of the old North Church,

  By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,

  To the belfry-chamber overhead,

  And startled the pigeons from their perch

  On the sombre rafters, that round him made

  Masses and moving shapes of shade, –

  By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,

  To the highest window in the wall,

  Where he paused to listen and look down

  A moment on the roofs of the town,

  And the moonlight flowing over all.

  Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,

  In their night encampment on the hill,

  Wrapped in silence so deep and still

  That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,

  The watchful night-wind, as it went

  Creeping along from tent to tent,

  And seeming to whisper, ‘All is well!’

  A moment only he feels the spell

  Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread

  Of the lonely belfry and the dead;

  For suddenly all his thoughts are bent

  On a shadowy something far away,

  Where the river widens to meet the bay, –

  A line of black that bends and floats

  On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

  Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,

  Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride

  On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.

  Now he patted his horse’s side,

  Now gazed at the landscape far and near,

  Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,

  And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;

  But mostly he watched with eager search

  The belfry-tower of the old North Church,

  As it rose above the graves on the hill,

  Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.

  And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height

  A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!

  He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,

  But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight

  A second lamp in the belfry burns!

  A hurry of hoofs in a village street,

  A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,

  And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark

  Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:

  That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,

  The fate of a nation was riding that night;

  And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,

  Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

  He has left the village and mounted the steep,

  And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,

  Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;

  And under the alders, that skirt its edge,

  Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,

  Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

  It was twelve by the village clock,

  When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.

  He heard the crowing of the cock,

  And the barking of the farmer’s dog,

  And felt the damp of the river fog,

  That rises after the sun goes down.

  It was one by the village clock,

  When he galloped into Lexington.

  He saw the gilded weathercock

  Swim in the moonlight as he passed,

  And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,

  Gaze at him with a spectral glare,

  As if they already stood aghast

  At the bloody work they would look upon.

  It was two by the village clock,

  When he came to the bridge in Concord town.

  He heard the bleating of the flock,

  And the twitter of birds among the trees,

  And felt the breath of the morning breeze

  Blowing over the meadows brown.

  And one was safe and asleep in his bed

  Who at the bridge would be first to fall,

  Who that day would be lying dead,

  Pierced by a British musket-ball.

  You know the rest. In the books you have read,

  How the British Regulars fired and fled, –

  How the farmers gave them ball for ball,

  From behind each fence and farm-yard wall,

  Chasing the red-coats down the lane,

  Then crossing the fields to emerge again

  Under the trees at the turn of the road,

  And only pausing to fire and load.

  So through the night rode Paul Revere;

  And so through the night went his cry of alarm

  To every Middlesex village and farm, –

  A cry of defiance and not of fear,

  A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,

  And a word that shall echo for evermore!

  For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,

  Through all our history, to the last,

  In the hour of darkness and peril and need,

  The people will waken and listen to hear

  The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,

  And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

  19 April • Concord Hymn • Ralph Waldo Emerson

  On 19 April 1775, the day after Paul Revere’s famous midnight ride, the American Revolutionary War had begun. The opening battles took place in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. The American philosopher-poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote this poem in 1837 for the completion of the battle monument in Concord, the town where he lived.

  By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

  Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

  Here once the embattled farmers stood

  And fired the shot heard round the world.

  The foe long since in silence slept;

  Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;

  And Time the ruined bridge has swept

  Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

  On this green bank, by this soft stream,

  We set today a votive stone;

  That memory may their deed redeem,

  When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

  Spirit, that made those heroes dare

  To die, and leave their children free,

  Bid Time and Nature gently spar
e

  The shaft we raise to them and thee.

  19 April • Be Like the Bird • Victor Hugo

  The great French novelist and poet Victor Hugo was born in France in 1802 and is perhaps best known as the author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Misérables.

  Be like the bird, who

  Resting in his flight

  On a twig too slight

  Feels it bend beneath him Yet sings,

  Knowing he has wings.

  20 April • I Had a Dove • John Keats

  It is extraordinary to think that John Keats, remembered for writing some of the most beautiful poetry in history, died when he was only twenty-five years old. These lines, on a wild bird kept as a pet that dies in its captivity, reflect upon death in a way that feels especially poignant.

  I had a dove, and the sweet dove died;

  And I have thought it died of grieving:

  O, what could it grieve for? Its feet were tied,

  With a silken thread of my own hand’s weaving;

  Sweet little red feet, why should you die?

  Why should you leave me, sweet bird, why?

  You liv’d alone on the forest tree,

  Why, pretty thing! could you not live with me?

  I kiss’d you oft and gave you white peas;

  Why not live sweetly, as in the green trees?

  20 April • Cynddylan on a Tractor • R. S. Thomas

  In this poem, R. S. Thomas uses the description of the farmer Cynddylan’s first ride on his brand-new tractor to explore some of the concerns he has about industrialization coming to the farms of his native Wales.

  Ah, you should see Cynddylan on a tractor.

  Gone the old look that yoked him to the soil,

  He’s a new man now, part of the machine,

  His nerves of metal and his blood oil.

  The clutch curses, but the gears obey

  His least bidding, and lo, he’s away

  Out of the farmyard, scattering hens.

  Riding to work now as a great man should,

  He is the knight at arms breaking the fields’

  Mirror of silence, emptying the wood

  Of foxes and squirrels and bright jays.

  The sun comes over the tall trees

  Kindling all the hedges, but not for him

  Who runs his engine on a different fuel.

  And all the birds are singing, bills wide in vain,

  As Cynddylan passes proudly up the lane.

  21 April • from The Old Vicarage, Grantchester • Rupert Brooke

  Brooke wrote this sprightly poem while recuperating from a nervous breakdown in Berlin. It reflects upon his student days at the University of Cambridge, and the nearby village of Grantchester, a popular spot for students escaping their work for a day.

  Ah God! to see the branches stir

  Across the moon at Grantchester!

  To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten

  Unforgettable, unforgotten

  River-smell, and hear the breeze

  Sobbing in the little trees.

  Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand

  Still guardians of that holy land?

  The chestnuts shade, in reverend dream,

  The yet unacademic stream?

  Is dawn a secret shy and cold

  Anadyomene, silver-gold?

  And sunset still a golden sea

  From Haslingfield to Madingley?

  And after, ere the night is born,

  Do hares come out about the corn?

  Oh, is the water sweet and cool,

  Gentle and brown, above the pool?

  And laughs the immortal river still

  Under the mill, under the mill?

  Say, is there Beauty yet to find?

  And Certainty? and Quiet kind?

  Deep meadows yet, for to forget

  The lies, and truths, and pain? … oh! yet

  Stands the Church clock at ten to three?

  And is there honey still for tea?

  21 April • In Memoriam (Easter 1915) • Edward Thomas

  In these four lines Thomas reminds the reader of the bloodshed and waste of war. The poem was composed in April 1915, a few months before Thomas decided to enlist in the Artists’ Rifles, which he eventually did in July of that year.

  The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood

  This Eastertide call into mind the men,

  Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should

  Have gathered them and will do never again.

  22 April • The Woodspurge • Dante Gabriel Rossetti

  The writer and artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti was the brother of the poet Christina Rossetti. This poem of his recounts the movements of the narrator’s grief, first like a billowing wind, next quiet and still. Sitting perfectly still in his state of grief, all thoughts, like the wind, are dropped – when he stirs from his spell, he finds himself doing nothing more than staring at a woodspurge, a type of wildflower that flowers from April to June.

  The wind flapped loose, the wind was still,

  Shaken out dead from tree and hill:

  I had walked on at the wind’s will, –

  I sat now, for the wind was still.

  Between my knees my forehead was, –

  My lips, drawn in, said not Alas!

  My hair was over in the grass,

  My naked ears heard the day pass.

  My eyes, wide open, had the run

  Of some ten weeds to fix upon;

  Among those few, out of the sun,

  The woodspurge flowered, three cups in one.

  From perfect grief there need not be

  Wisdom or even memory:

  One thing then learnt remains to me, –

  The woodspurge has a cup of three.

  22 April • A Dream within a Dream • Edgar Allan Poe

  This work by the American poet Edgar Allan Poe takes as its subject the relationship between reality and fantasy.

  Take this kiss upon the brow!

  And, in parting from you now,

  Thus much let me avow —

  You are not wrong, who deem

  That my days have been a dream;

  Yet if hope has flown away

  In a night, or in a day,

  In a vision, or in none,

  Is it therefore the less gone?

  All that we see or seem

  Is but a dream within a dream.

  I stand amid the roar

  Of a surf-tormented shore,

  And I hold within my hand

  Grains of the golden sand —

  How few! yet how they creep

  Through my fingers to the deep,

  While I weep – while I weep!

  O God! Can I not grasp

  Them with a tighter clasp?

  O God! can I not save

  One from the pitiless wave?

  Is all that we see or seem

  But a dream within a dream?

  23 April • from Richard II • William Shakespeare

  Today is St George’s Day, the feast day of the patron saint of England. It is also the traditional day of Shakespeare’s birth in 1564 (and his death in 1616); records do not show when the Bard was born, but we know that he was baptized on 26 April 1564. These lines, from Richard II, bring together both days, in Shakespeare’s tribute to the blessed plot of England.

  This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,

  This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

  This other Eden, demi-paradise,

  This fortress built by Nature for herself

  Against infection and the hand of war;

  This happy breed of men, this little world;

  This precious stone set in the silver sea,

  Which serves it in the office of a wall,

  Or as a moat defensive to a house,

  Against the envy of less happier lands;

  This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

>   23 April • Incident of the French Camp • Robert Browning

  The Battle of Ratisbon took place on the 23 April 1809. It was fought as part of the Napoleonic Wars, between the French and Austrian empires. The poem focuses on an imagined exchange between a very young French soldier, fatally injured on his horse, and the Emperor Napoleon himself.

  You know, we French storm’d Ratisbon:

  A mile or so away,

  On a little mound, Napoleon

  Stood on our storming-day;

  With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,

  Legs wide, arms lock’d behind,

  As if to balance the prone brow

  Oppressive with its mind.

  Just as perhaps he mused ‘My plans

  That soar, to earth may fall,

  Let once my army leader Lannes

  Waver at yonder wall,’ –

  Out ’twixt the battery-smokes there flew

  A rider, bound on bound

  Full-galloping; nor bridle drew

  Until he reached the mound.

  Then off there flung in smiling joy,

  And held himself erect

  By just his horse’s mane, a boy:

  You hardly could suspect –

  (So tight he kept his lips compressed,

  Scarce any blood came through)

  You look’d twice ere you saw his breast

  Was all but shot in two.

  ‘Well,’ cried he, ‘Emperor, by God’s grace

  We’ve got you Ratisbon!

  The Marshal’s in the market-place,

  And you’ll be there anon

  To see your flag-bird flap his vans

  Where I, to heart’s desire,

  Perched him!’ The chief’s eye flash’d; his plans

  Soared up again like fire.

  The chief’s eye flashed; but presently

  Softened itself, as sheathes

  A film the mother-eagle’s eye

  When her bruised eaglet breathes.

  ‘You’re wounded!’ ‘Nay,’ the soldier’s pride

  Touch’d to the quick, he said:

  ‘I’m kill’d, Sire!’ And his chief beside

  Smiling the boy fell dead.

  24 April • Sonnet 18 • William Shakespeare

  Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, but this one is perhaps his most well-known. Traditionally, sonnets have been associated with romantic love, often praising the virtues of the beloved.