Easter is a time of profound renewal and spiritual reflection.
As we gather in our churches to celebrate, poetry can beautifully capture the essence of this sacred season.
Here are 10 enriching Easter poems that speak to the heart, offering inspiration and contemplation.
Let’s jump right in!
My favorite Easter poem for church
#1 “Easter Week” by Charles Kingsley
(Written for music to be sung at a parish industrial exhibition)
See the land, her Easter keeping,
Rises as her Maker rose.
Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,
Burst at last from winter snows.
Earth with heaven above rejoices;
Fields and gardens hail the spring;
Shaughs and woodlands ring with voices,
While the wild birds build and sing.
You, to whom your Maker granted
Powers to those sweet birds unknown,
Use the craft by God implanted;
Use the reason not your own.
Here, while heaven and earth rejoices,
Each his Easter tribute bring –
Work of fingers, chant of voices,
Like the birds who build and sing.
Eversley, 1867.
This poem beautifully captures Easter’s essence by linking nature’s renewal with spiritual rebirth.
I love how it paints a picture of the earth awakening, mirroring Christ’s resurrection.
It encourages us to use our talents to celebrate, just as birds sing and fields bloom.
Its themes of unity and devotion make it ideal for church.
9 more Easter poems for church
#2 “Easter” by Emily Pauline Johnson
April 1, 1888
Lent gathers up her cloak of sombre shading
In her reluctant hands.
Her beauty heightens, fairest in its fading,
As pensively she stands
Awaiting Easter’s benediction falling,
Like silver stars at night,
Before she can obey the summons calling
Her to her upward flight,
Awaiting Easter’s wings that she must borrow
Ere she can hope to fly –
Those glorious wings that we shall see to-morrow
Against the far, blue sky.
Has not the purple of her vesture’s lining
Brought calm and rest to all?
Has her dark robe had naught of golden shining
Been naught but pleasure’s pall?
Who knows? Perhaps when to the world returning
In youth’s light joyousness,
We’ll wear some rarer jewels we found burning
In Lent’s black-bordered dress.
So hand in hand with fitful March she lingers
To beg the crowning grace
Of lifting with her pure and holy fingers
The veil from April’s face.
Sweet, rosy April – laughing, sighing, waiting
Until the gateway swings,
And she and Lent can kiss between the grating
Of Easter’s tissue wings.
Too brief the bliss – the parting comes with sorrow.
Good-bye dear Lent, good-bye!
We’ll watch your fading wings outlined to-morrow
Against the far blue sky.
#3 “Easter Night” by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell
All night had shout of men and cry
Of woeful women filled His way;
Until that noon of sombre sky
On Friday, clamour and display
Smote Him; no solitude had He,
No silence, since Gethsemane.
Public was Death; but Power, but Might,
But Life again, but Victory,
Were hushed within the dead of night,
The shutter’d dark, the secrecy.
And all alone, alone, alone
He rose again behind the stone.
#4 “Easter Morn” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
A truth that has long lain buried
At Superstition’s door,
I see, in the dawn uprising
In all its strength once more.
Hidden away in the darkness,
By Ignorance crucified,
Crushed under stones of dogmas –
Yet lo! it has not died.
It stands in the light transfigured,
It speaks from the heights above,
“EACH SOUL IS ITS OWN REDEEMER;
THERE IS NO LAW BUT LOVE.”
And the spirits of men are gladdened
As they welcome this Truth re-born
With its feet on the grave of Error
And its eyes to the Easter Morn.
#5 “Easter Even” by Christina Georgina Rossetti
There is nothing more that they can do
For all their rage and boast;
Caiaphas with his blaspheming crew,
Herod with his host,
Pontius Pilate in his Judgement-hall
Judging their Judge and his,
Or he who led them all and passed them all,
Arch-Judas with his kiss.
The sepulchre made sure with ponderous Stone,
Seal that same stone, O Priest;
It may be thou shalt block the holy One
From rising in the east:
Set a watch about the sepulchre
To watch on pain of death;
They must hold fast the stone if One should stir
And shake it from beneath.
God Almighty, He can break a seal
And roll away a Stone,
Can grind the proud in dust who would not kneel,
And crush the mighty one.
* * * * * * *
There is nothing more that they can do
For all their passionate care,
Those who sit in dust, the blessed few,
And weep and rend their hair:
Peter, Thomas, Mary Magdalene,
The Virgin unreproved,
Joseph, with Nicodemus, foremost men,
And John the Well-beloved,
Bring your finest linen and your spice,
Swathe the sacred Dead,
Bind with careful hands and piteous eyes
The napkin round His head;
Lay Him in the garden-rock to rest;
Rest you the Sabbath length:
The Sun that went down crimson in the west
Shall rise renewed in strength.
God Almighty shall give joy for pain,
Shall comfort him who grieves:
Lo! He with joy shall doubtless come again,
And with Him bring His sheaves.
#6 “Easter Lilies” by Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)
Darlings of June and brides of summer sun,
Chill pipes the stormy wind, the skies are drear;
Dull and despoiled the gardens every one:
What do you here?
We looked to see your gracious blooms arise
Mid soft and wooing airs in gardens green,
Where venturesome brown bees and butterflies
Should hail you queen.
Here is no bee nor glancing butterfly;
They fled on rapid wings before the snow:
Your sister lilies laid them down to die,
Long, long ago.
And here, amid the slowly dropping rain,
We keep our Easter feast, with hearts whose care
Mars the high cadence of each lofty strain,
Each thankful prayer.
But not a shadow dims your joyance sweet,
No baffled hope or memory darkly clad;
You lay your whiteness at the Lord’s dear feet,
And are all glad.
O coward soul! arouse thee and draw near,
Led by these fragrant acolytes to-day!
Let their sweet confidence rebuke thy fear,
Thy cold delay.
Come with thy darkness to the healing light,
Come with thy bitter, which shall be made sweet,
And lay thy soil beside the lilies white,
At His dear feet!
#7 “Easter Day” by William Lisle Bowles
Who comes (my soul no longer doubt),
Rising from earth’s wormy sod,
And whilst ten thousand angels sing,
Ascends – ascends to heaven, a God?
Saviour, Lord, I know thee now!
Mighty to redeem and save,
Such glory blazes on thy brow,
Which lights the darkness of the grave.
Saviour, Lord, the human soul,
Forgotten every sorrow here,
Shall thus, aspiring to its goal,
Triumph in its native sphere.
#8 “Easter” by Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)
When dawns on earth the Easter sun
The dear saints feel an answering thrill.
With whitest flowers their hands they fill;
And, singing all in unison,
Unto the battlements they press–
The very marge of heaven–how near!
And bend, and look upon us here
With eyes that rain down tenderness.
Their roses, brimmed with fragrant dew,
Their lilies fair they raise on high;
“Rejoice! The Lord is risen!” they cry;
“Christ is arisen; we prove it true!
“Rejoice, and dry those faithless tears
With which your Easter flowers are stained;
Share in our bliss, who have attained
The rapture of the eternal years;
“Have proved the promise which endures,
The Love that deigned, the Love that died;
Have reached our haven by His side–
Are Christ’s, but none the less are yours;
“Yours with a nearness never known
While parted by the veils of sense;
Infinite knowledge, joy intense,
A love which is not love alone,
“But faith perfected, vision free,
And patience limitless and wise–
Beloved, the Lord is risen, arise!
And dare to be as glad as we!”
We do rejoice, we do give thanks,
O blessed ones, for all your gain,
As dimly through these mists of pain
We catch the gleaming of your ranks.
We will arise, with zeal increased,
Blending, the while we strive and grope,
Our paler festival of Hope
With your Fruition’s perfect feast.
Bend low beloved, against the blue;
Lift higher still the lilies fair,
Till, following where our treasures are,
We come to join the feast with you.
#9 “Easter Bells” by Kate Seymour Maclean
Oh bells of Easter morn, oh solemn sounding bells,
Which fill the hollow cells
Of the blue April air with a most sweet refrain,
Ye fill my heart with pain.
For when, as from a thousand holy altar-fires,
A thousand resonant spires
Sent up the offering–the glad thanksgiving strain–
“The Lord is risen again!”
He went from us who shall return no more, no more!
I say the sad words o’er,
And they are mixed and blent with your triumphant psalm,
Like bitterness and balm,
We stood with him beside the black and silent river,
Cold, cold and soundless ever;
But there our feet were stayed–unloosed our clasping fond,
And he has passed beyond.
And still that solemn hymn, like smoke of sacrifice,
Clomb the blue April skies,
And on our anguish placed its sacramental chrism,
“Behold, the Lord is risen!”
Oh, bells of Easter morn! your mighty voices reach
A deeper depth than speech;
We heard, “Because He liveth they shall live with Him;”
This was our Easter hymn.
And while the slow vibrations swell, and sink, and cease,
They bring divinest peace,
For we commit our best beloved to the dust,
In sure and certain trust.
#10 “Easter Day II” by Arthur Hugh Clough
So in the sinful streets, abstracted and alone,
I with my secret self held communing of mine own.
So in the southern city spake the tongue
Of one that somewhat overwildly sung,
But in a later hour I sat and heard
Another voice that spake another graver word.
Weep not, it bade, whatever hath been said,
Though He be dead, He is not dead.
In the true creed
He is yet risen indeed;
Christ is yet risen.
Weep not beside His tomb,
Ye women unto whom
He was great comfort and yet greater grief;
Nor ye, ye faithful few that wont with Him to roam,
Seek sadly what for Him ye left, go hopeless to your home;
Nor ye despair, ye sharers yet to be of their belief;
Though He be dead, He is not dead,
Nor gone, though fled,
Not lost, though vanished;
Though He return not, though
He lies and moulders low;
In the true creed
He is yet risen indeed;
Christ is yet risen.
Sit if ye will, sit down upon the ground,
Yet not to weep and wail, but calmly look around.
Whate’er befel,
Earth is not hell;
Now, too, as when it first began,
Life is yet life, and man is man.
For all that breathe beneath the heaven’s high cope,
Joy with grief mixes, with despondence hope.
Hope conquers cowardice, joy grief;
Or at least, faith unbelief.
Though dead, not dead;
Not gone, though fled;
Not lost, though vanished.
In the great gospel and true creed,
He is yet risen indeed;
Christ is yet risen.