Classic Poem

Yet once again, ye banks and bowery nooks,
And once again, ye dells and flowing brooks,
I come to list the plashing of your fountains
And lie within the foldings of your mountains.
Yet once again, ye mossy flowery plots,
And once again, ye leaf-enguarded grots,
And breathing fields and soft enclosing shades,
And once again, ye fair and loving maids,
I come to twist my fingers in your tresses,
And watch your eyes and laugh in your caresses,
And beg or steal or seize your pouting kisses
And live and die in your oblivious blisses;
Yet once again, ye banks and bowers, I hie to you,
And once again, ye loves and graces, fly to you.

I come, I come, upon the heart's wings fly to you,
Ye dreary lengths of brick and flag, goodbye to you,
Ambitious hopes and money's mean anxieties,
And worldly-wise decorum's false proprieties,
And politics and news and fates of nations too,
And philanthropic sick investigations too,
And company, and jests, and feeble witticisms
And talk of talk, and criticism of criticisms;
I come, I come, ye banks and bowers, to hide in you,
And once again, ye loves and joys, confide in you.

Yet once again, and why not once again?
The leaves they tumbled, but the boughs remain;
Cold winds they blew, and biting frosts they dried them,
But didn't wholly kill the old life inside them;
What Winter numbed, sweet Spring anon revisiteth,
And vernal airs to vernal stir soliciteth,
No scruples fond, no sly fastidious tarrying here,
Sweet air and earth forthwith are intermarrying here;
To intermixtures subtle, strange, mysterious
A voice, an impulse soft, sublime, imperious,
Calls all around us; shall we deaf remain?
Yet once again, and why not once again,
Yet once again, ye leafy bowers, I hide in you
And once again, ye tender loves, confide in you.

I come, I come, upon the soul's wings hie to you,
Ye weary lines of printer's ink, goodbye to you,
With all the tomes of all the hundred pages there,
The mighty books of all the World's great sages there,
Grammarians old, and modern fine Philologists,
And Poets gone, and going Ideologists,
From old solemnities, new trivialities,
Philosophies, economies, moralities,
I come, I come, ye banks and bowers, I hie to you,
And once again, ye loves and graces, fly to you.

Yet once again — how often once again?
The days die fast, old age comes on amain:
Age, loss, decay. Ah come, if come they will,
The leaf shall fall, the tree subsisteth still.
Age, weakness, death. Ah come, if come they must,
Age, weakness, death; and over our cold dust
The joyous spring shall lead, as erst, her flowers
To deck as erst our fresh reviving bowers,
And with the Spring and flowers the youth and maid
Shall laugh and kiss and play as we have played,
Shall part and meet and kiss old kisses o'er
And sing old verses we had sung before,
" Yet once again, ye banks and bowers, we hie to you,
And once again, ye loves and graces, fly to you."