Classic Poem

The dew is on the summer's greenest grass,
Through which the modest daisy blushing peeps;
The gentle wind that like a ghost doth pass,
A waving shadow on the corn-field keeps;
But I who love them all shall never be
Again among the woods, or on the moorland lea!

The sun shines sweetly — sweeter may it shine! —
Bless'd is the brightness of a summer day;
It cheers lone hearts; and why should I repine,
Although among green fields I cannot stray!
Woods! I have grown, since last I heard you wave,
Familiar now with death, and neighbor to the grave!

These words have shaken mighty human souls —
Like a sepulchre's echo drear they sound —
E'en as the owl's wild whoop at midnight rolls
The ivied remnants of old ruins round.
Yet wherefore tremble? Can the soul decay? —
Or that which thinks and feels in aught e'er fade away?

Are there not aspirations in each heart,
After a better, brighter world than this!
Longings for beings nobler in each part —
Things more exalted — steeped in deeper bliss?
Who gave us these? What are they? Soul! in thee
The bud is budding now for immortality!

Death comes to take me where I long to be;
One pang, and then bright blooms th' immortal flower;
Death comes to lead me from mortality,
To lands which know not one unhappy hour:
I have a hope — a faith; — — from sorrow here
I'm led by death away — why should I start and fear!

If I have loved the forest and the field,
Can I not love them deeper, better, there?
If all that power hath made, to me doth yield
Something of good and beauty — something fair —
Freed from the grossness of mortality,
May I not love them all, and better all enjoy?

A change from woe to joy — from earth to heaven,
Death gives me this — it leads me calmly where
The souls that long ago from mine were riven
May meet again! death answers many a prayer.
Bright day! shine on — be glad: — days brighter far
Are stretched before my eyes than those of mortals are!