April Night

How deep the April night is in its noon,

The hopeful, solemn, many-murmured night!

The earth lies hushed with expectation; bright

Above the world's dark border burns the moon,

Yellow and large; from forest floorways, strewn

With flowers, and fields that tingle with new birth,

The moist smell of the unimprisoned earth

Come up, a sigh, a haunting promise. Soon,

Ah, soon, the teeming triumph! At my feet

The river with its stately sweep and wheel

Moves on slow-motioned, luminous, gray like steel.

From fields far off whose watery hollows gleam,

Aye with blown throats that make the long hours sweet,

The sleepless toads are murmuring in their dreams.