'Tis April once again and the sunlight warms the street;
In Central Park and Union Square the golden tulips glow;
And somewhere off the Avenue above the restless feet
You can hear the organs whining those tunes of long ago—
Sweet songs of sunny Italy or martial airs of France,
Or maybe some gay chorus from a London ballet dance.

You need not seek a reason for the ache that will arise,
The old familiar longing that will not let you rest,
To sail and sail and sail to the blue of other skies,
To lift some foreign headland between the East and West:
To search beyond the seas for a port you do not know,
Where the high hills dream above you and the breakers cream below.

Your eyes will search the pier-heads for a liner outward bound;
You will hear the cheery voices of the throng along her rail,
Who call across the water from the freedom they have found
To the host of patient faces who must ever watch them sail.
Then stumbling back to duty and with eyes between the bars,
You'll strive to drown the calling in the clamor of the cars.

How vain a thing this struggle with the dreary round of days,
When the summer suns are shining on the spaces of the sea,
When the whole world bids us wander down singing woodland ways
And the four great winds of Heaven are crying us be free!
And to all the canyon toilers 'tis the saddest time o' year
When the sunlight warms the street and we know that April's here.