April, when spring begins to blossom, is National Poetry Month in the U.S. Let’s celebrate both.

See if you can match the poem depicting spring (A – I) with the poet (1 – 9)

The Poems

1. in Just…
   spring            when the world is mud…
   luscious the little
   lame balloonman
2. Behold, this crocus is a withering flame;
   This snowdrop, snow; this apple-blossom’s part
   To breed the fruit that breeds the serpent’s art.
   Nay, for these Spring-flowers, turn thy face from them,
   Nor stay till on the year’s last lily-stem
   The white cup shrivels round the golden heart.
3. Random thoughts
   and loneliness trouble me
   but I am soothed by the
   anticipation of cherry blossoms
   and spring rain falling on my hut.
4. April is the cruelest month, breeding
   Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
   Memory and desire, stirring
   Dull roots with spring rain.
5. A LITTLE madness in the Spring
   Is wholesome even for the King,
   But God be with the Clown,
   Who ponders this tremendous scene…
   This whole experiment of green,
   As if it were his own!
6. Open my ears to music; let
   Me thrill with Spring’s first flutes and drums…
   But never let me dare forget
   The bitter ballads of the slums.
7. For oft, when on my couch I lie
   In vacant or in pensive mood,
   They flash upon that inward eye
   Which is the bliss of solitude;
   And then my heart with pleasure fills,
   And dances with the daffodils
8. I remember, I remember
   There were ghostly veils and laces…
   In the shadowy bowery places…
   With lovers’ ardent faces
   Bending to one another,
   Speaking each his part.
   They infinitely echo
   In the red cave of my heart.
   ‘Sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart.’
   They said to one another.
   They spoke, I think, of perils past.
   They spoke, I think, of peace at last.
   One thing I remember:
   Spring came on forever,
   Spring came on forever,”
   Said the Chinese nightingale.
9. O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down
   Thro’ the clear windows of the morning, turn
   Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
   Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!

The Poets

1. William Wordsworth
2. Dante Gabriel Rossetti
3. Emily Dickinson
4. Vachel Lindsay
5. E. E. Cummings
6. William Blake
7. Otasaki Rengetsu
8. T.S. Eliot
9. Louis Untermeyer

Answers after the jump.

Answers to Spring Poems & Poets

1. – 5. EE Cummings
2. – 2. Dante Gabriel Rossetti
3. – 7. Otasaki Rengetsu
4. – 8. TS Eliot
5. – 3. Emily Dickinson
6. – 9. Louis Untermeyer
7. – 1. William Wordsworth
8. – 4. Vachel Lindsay
9. – 6. William Blake