Rondeau
Jessie Redmon Fauset
When April’s here and meadows wide
Once more with spring’s sweet growths are pied
I close each book, drop each pursuit,
And past the brook, no longer mute,
I joyous roam the countryside.
Look, here the violets shy abide
And there the mating robins hide—
How keen my sense, how acute,
When April’s here!
And list! down where the shimmering tide
Hard by that farthest hill doth glide,
Rise faint strains from shepherd’s flute,
Pan’s pipes and Berecyntian lute.
Each sight, each sound fresh joys provide
When April’s here.
Jessie Redmon Fauset’s poem “Rondeau,” was first published in the April 1912 issue of The Crisis, a magazine founded by W. E. B. Du Bois to be the premier crusading voice for civil rights.
