ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 
149 
AN APRIL DAY. 
W HEN the warm sun that brings 
Seed time and harvest, has returned again, 
’Tis sweet to visit the still wood, where springs 
The first flower of the plain. 
I love the season well, 
When forest glades are teeming with bright forms, 
Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell 
The coming-on of storms. 
From the earth’s loosening mould 
The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives; 
Though stricken to the heart with winter’s cold. 
The drooping tree revives. 
The softly warbled song 
Comes from the pleasant woods, and colored wings 
Glance quick in the bright sun, that moves along 
The forest openings. 
When the bright sunset fills 
The silver woods with light, the green slope throws 
Its shadows in the hollows of the hills, 
And wide the upland grows. 
And when the eve is born, 
In the blue lake the sky, o’er reaching far, 
Is hollowed out, and the moon dips her horn, 
And twinkles many a star. 
Inverted in the tide 
Stand the gray rocks, and trembling shadows throw, 
And the fair trees look over, side by side. 
And see themselves below. 
Sweet April! many a thought 
Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed; 
Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought, 
Life’s golden fruit is shed. 
Longfellow. 
One impulse from a vernal wood, 
May teach you more of man, 
Of moral evil and of good, 
Than all the sages can. 
Wordsworth. 
