Classic Poem

AS YOU LIKE IT

I WAS a child, and my green Shakespere took
Into a meadow, underneath a tree
Where oft' I went to read, and eagerly —
With trembling fingers — opened my new book. ...
I liked the pages and their broken look
Of measured lines. ... Then people talked to me,
And to each other, — and I seemed to see
A girl who sighed and held a shepherd's crook;

And then I heard poor Celia, who was tired,
Say — " I can go no farther " ; and I felt
I too had walked with them until I could
No farther go. ... Orlando's verses fired
My heart with such swift sympathy I knelt
And prayed that things might happen as they should.