Quote of the Day (Sir William Watson, on April’s ‘Golden Laughter’)

“April, April,
Laugh thy golden laughter,
But, the moment after,
Weep thy golden tears!”—English poet Sir William Watson (1858-1935), “Song,” in The Poems of Sir William Watson (1936)
 
I had never heard of this poem until last week, when I watched Katharine Hepburn reciting these lines in Without Love (1945), the third of her nine films with Spencer Tracy. I’m not sure who was responsible for including this literary allusion: screenwriter Donald Ogden Stewart or Philip Barry, who created the original Broadway play.
 
All of this got me wondering about other instances of poetry used in films. “S.G.,” the creator of the blog “Rhyme and Reason,” had a useful May 2016 post, “My Top Twelve Poems in Movies.” I’d like to add just one more: Joyce Kilmer’s “Rouge Bouquet,” recited movingly by the actor portraying him, Jeffrey Lynn, in this clip from the 1940 movie The Fighting 69^th.