Littell's Living Age/Volume 173/Issue 2241/A Rainless April

by H. D. R.

Come, April, come with gift of smile and tears,
     Not with thine eyes unable thus to weep, —
     Hast thou no store of sorrow from the deep
To loose and laugh through, as in former years?
Come, let Lodore make music for our ears,
     And rouse Helvellyn from his winter sleep,
     Hang rainbow glories from the sunny steep,
And shroud at night with dew the glittering spheres.

For now the mountain faces, faint and pale
     For lack of thy revivifying hand,
          Swoon on beyond their time, expressionless.
And now the flocks are milkless in the dale,
     The cuckoo calls not, and the larches stand
          Without a heart to don their jewelled dress.