African American Poetry: A Digital Anthology

Jessie Fauset, "Here's April" (1924)

This town that yesterday was dark and mean,
   And dank and raw with Winter's freezing air,
Is Light itself today, and verdant Sheen
   Gold-tinted, and besprent with perfume rare;
Translated over night to a parterre
   That makes me dream of Araby and Sapin,
And all the healing places of the EArth,
   Where one lays by his woe, his bitter pain,--
      For peace and mirth.

II.

Old Winter that stayed by us black and drear,
   And laid his blighting seal on everything,
Is vanished.--Is it true he once was here?--
  Mark how the ash-trees bud, and children sing, 
And birds set up a faint, shy jargoning;
   And healing balm pours out from bole and leafe.
For Spring--sweet April's here in tree and grass!
   Oh foolish heart to fret so with your grief!
      This too shall pass!

Published in The Crisis, April 1924

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