There’s much to be said in praise of the small poem. For one thing, small poems, like today’s Poem of the Day by Sara Teasdale (1884–1933), are easy to memorize. In fact, Teasdale’s “April” is a particularly portable poem, good for tucking in the pocket of the mind: two brief quatrains, tetrameter resolving into trimeter in the last line, rhymes in the second and fourth lines of each stanza. Read it twice with attention, and you have it forever.

For another thing, a small poem may be potent in its imagery and concentrated mood. In eight lines, Teasdale sketches the chanciness of spring and the determination to believe in its coming despite the lack of evidence. As much as this is a child’s poem, with a child’s simple observations, it is at the same time a poem about the conviction of things not seen, yet perceived inwardly. Though a small poem, it holds in its brief space the largeness of a child’s hopeful vision, befitting our week of April poetry here in The New York Sun.