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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  April

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

April

By Edward Carpenter (1844–1929)
 
(From Towards Democracy, 1883)

O APRIL, month of Nymphs and Fauns and Cupids,
Month of the Sungod’s kisses, Earth’s sweet passion,
Of fanciful winds and showers;
Apollo, glorious over hill and dale
Ethereally striding; grasses springing        5
Rapt to his feet, buds bursting, flowers out-breathing
Their liberated hearts in love to him.
 
[The little black-cap garrulous on the willow
Perching so prim, the crested chaffinch warbling,
And primrose and celandine, anemone and daisy,        10
Starring the tender herb which lambs already nibble.]
 
Month of all-gathering warmth,
Of breathless moments, hotter and hotter growing—
Smiles turned to fire, kisses to fierce earnest—
Of sultry swoons, pauses, and strange suspense        15
(Clouds and dæmonic thunder through the blue vault threatingly rolling);
Then the delirious up-break—the great fountains of the deep, in Sex,
Loosened to pouring failing rushing waters;
Shafts of wild light; and Sky and Earth in one another’s arms
Melted, and all of Heaven spent in streams of love        20
Towards the Loved one.