Classic Poem

On a dreary day in winter, when the wind with cold was crying;
When the Frost King, from his palace, rode adown the crisped air;
When the drifted snow in hillocks on the frozen ground was lying,
And the maples and the beaches stood shivering brown and bare;

In the great heart of the city, walled about with brick and mortar,
I found a bower of beauty where stern winter was denied;
And from all life's fret and worry gave my soul an hour to loiter,
And away she gayly flitted, taking Fancy for her guide.

Aye, away by blooming hedges, and green meadows starred with daisies;
By granite cliffs, where lichens hung their crimson banners gay;
By shadowy dells and dingles, floored with mosses, hung with hazes,
Where the fragrant water lilies bathe their faces in bright spray.

Then, through woodland paths and bridges, to a cottage quaint and cosy,
Embowered in odorous eglantine, from rustic porch to eaves;
By fields where youths and maidens, with bright faces round and rosy,
Raked the hay with merry singing, or bound the golden sheaves.

Thence she wandered down broad valleys, to the feet of snow-capp'd mountains;
Rested in the cool, green shadows of gigantic forest trees;
Sailed along bright, winding rivers; caught the sparkle of glad fountains,
And saw the sunset-crimson burn along the summer seas.

Then away to classic Rhineland, to a ruin grand and hoary,
Where sculptured frieze and peristyle met their mysterious fate;
Where mouldering aisles and arches whisper many a stirring story,
Of knightly men and women fair, pomp, pageantry and state.

Vines and many-colored grasses trailed bright leaves and blossoms tender,
Along its broken arches, ruined wall and colonnade,
And instead of princes, courtiers, coming, going in their splendor,
A few poor peasants rested with their flocks beneath its shade.

And my truant soul, forgetting all the lore of sterner duty—
All the past, and all the future, in her dreaming wandered on;
Wandered on, enrapt, enchanted, in this new-found world of beauty,
Till common cares recalled her, when the little hour was gone.

And, although her wings were folded, she was richer, wiser, better,
And stronger for life's pathway, through the frost and through the snow;
And whatever may befall her, till she breaks life's mortal fetter,
She will not forget that journey in the artist's studio.