Virna Sheard

When April comes with softly shining eyes,
And daffodils bound in her wind-blown hair,
Oh, she will coax all clouds from out the skies,
...

April again! the willow wands are yellow
Rose-red the brambles that the passing wind knows,
Comes a robin's note like the note of a 'cello,
And across the valley, the calling of the crows,-
'April again!'
...

April! April! April!
With a mist of green on the trees--
And a scent of the warm brown broken earth
On every wandering breeze;
...

'Tis time to sing of roses: of roses all ablow,
To every vagrant passing breeze they dip a courtesy low,
...

Windy March weather, with a lone crow flying,
A little ebony airship careening down the blue,
And high, high above him a wild goose crying,
The leading cry, the clarion cry, that guides his grey lines through!
...

Throughout the sunny day he whistled on his way--
Oh high and low, and gay and sweet,
The melody rang down the street,
...

I love red poppies! Imperial red poppies!
Sun-worshippers are they;
Gladly as trees live through a hundred summers
They live one little day.
...

Hark! Hark to the wind! 'Tis the night, they say,
When all souls come back from the far away--
The dead, forgotten this many a day!
...

ON this little pool where the sunbeams lie,
This tawny gold ring where the shadows die,
God doth enamel the blue of His sky.
...

Little honey baby, shet yo' eyes up tight;--
(Shadow-man is comin' from de moon!)--
You's as sweet as roses if dey is so pink an white;
...

Love maketh its own summer time,
'Tis June, Love, when we are together,
And little I care for the frost in the air,
...

Love reckons not by time--its May days of delight
Are swifter than the falling stars that pass beyond our sight.
...

O England! Thy foe hath hated thee long,
And his hate is a deadly thing;
It was held in his heart till its growth was strong,
Now, words have woven it into a song
...

When jonquils blow I think of one
Who sleeps beneath the green;
And all the light and song of life
And all the golden sheen
...

Now they remain to us forever young
Who with such splendor gave their youth away;
Perpetual Spring is their inheritance,
Though they have lived in Flanders and in France
...

Love maketh its own summer time,
'Tis June, Love, when we are together,
And little I care for the frost in the air,
For the heart makes its own summer weather.
...

O heart of mine-if I were but a swallow-
A thing so fearless, swift of flight, and free-
On wings unwearied I would find and follow
Some path that led to thee!
...

The little lonely crosses, the crosses low and white,
They haunt me most in the silver hour
That lies against the night;
Or when the rose-dusk dawn comes in,
...

All your broken war-spent heroes,
Lord of War and Grief-you pay
With a cross of moulded iron,
Hard-wrought iron cold and grey.
...

For thee, my small one--trinkets and new toys,
The wine of life and all its keenest joys,
When Christmas comes.
...