Hope in a Morning Blighted

 April Sonnet II: April Cruel
by Francis Bennoch

April, ah me! how swiftly changes come,
How soon the month we love we learn to hate,
When boughs deflowered hang down disconsolate,
And clouds of grief make dark our garden home,
Where genial shunshine lingering loved to wait;
With joy we grafted in thy wounded rind
The fairest branch that ever blossom bore;
Clasped close, incorporate as one combined,
A newborn rapture trembled in thy core
As budding life expanded, more and more
We longed to reap the fruit; but woke to find
Hope in a morning blighted; from the shore
A ruthless wind stole with untimely frost,
And all thy cherished bloom was shrivelled, loosed, and lost.

April, 1855