Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

An April Day (Longfellow)

{{smallcaps|When}} the warm sun, that brings
Seed-time and harvest, has returned again,
'T is 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 loosened mould
The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives;

Heart/cold inversion

Trees don't have hearts, but 'stricken to the heart' makes winter sound like violence or betrayal. The revival becomes emotional, not just botanical.

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

Silver woods

Sunset doesn't make woods silver—this is birch bark catching light. Specific New England detail, not generic landscape.

The silver woods with light, the green slope throws
Its shadows in the hollows of the hills,
And wide the upland glows.
And when the eve is born,
In the blue lake the sky, o'er-reaching far,

Moon's horn

Crescent moon looks like a horn when reflected in water. The verb 'dips' makes the moon active, drinking from the lake.

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,

Narcissus echo

Trees looking at their reflections 'side by side'—classical myth filtered through Romantic friendship. Nature becomes companionable.

And see themselves below.

Marriage metaphor

'Wedded' extends to 'autumn brought' and 'golden fruit'—the whole life cycle becomes a marriage ending in death. April is the bride.

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.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Water as Mirror

The poem's structure is itself a reflection. The first four stanzas describe land (woods, saplings, birds), the last four describe the same landscape mirrored in water. Stanza 5's 'silver woods' reappear in stanza 7 as 'inverted' rocks and trees. This isn't just description—it's Longfellow showing how April doubles the world.

The turn happens at 'blue lake' (stanza 6). Before this, everything is solid: earth's mould, tree hearts, forest openings. After, everything becomes liquid and reflected. The moon doesn't shine in the sky—it 'dips her horn' in water. The rocks don't stand on shore—they 'stand inverted in the tide.'

This doubling matters for the final stanza. When Longfellow says thoughts are 'wedded' to April, he means April teaches us to see double—the thing and its reflection, spring and the memory of spring, life and the image of life. The 'golden fruit' of autumn will be both the actual harvest and the reflected harvest of memory. April's gift isn't just renewal—it's the capacity to hold two versions of the world at once.

Longfellow's Consolation Formula

This poem appeared in Voices of the Night (1839), Longfellow's first collection, published two years after his first wife Mary died in Rotterdam. The book made him famous, but it's essentially a grief manual disguised as nature poetry.

'An April Day' follows the Longfellow consolation pattern: start with death ('stricken to the heart'), show natural revival ('the drooping tree revives'), then promise human revival through memory. The final stanza's marriage metaphor isn't abstract—Longfellow is arguing that thoughts wedded to April will survive until death ('autumn brought'). Memory becomes a form of immortality.

The poem's calm tone hides its argument. Longfellow doesn't say 'my wife died and spring makes me sad.' He says spring proves revival is the world's basic pattern. If trees survive winter's heart-strike, if reflections preserve what they mirror, then memories of the dead can survive too. This is why the poem ends with 'Life's golden fruit is shed'—not 'death comes' but 'life produces fruit even in shedding.' The consolation is structural, not stated.