Classic Poem

Beneath the yellow hair of May
The blushing flowers together lay,
The winds along the bending lea,
Kept flowing, flowing, like a sea
That could not rest,
When first a maid with tresses brown,
And blue eyes softly drooping down,
Sat in her chamber high and lone,
Locking a sweet dream, all her own,
Within her breast.

The elms around the homestead low
All night went swaying to and fro,
And the young summer's silver rain
Kept beating on the window pane,
So soft and low,
It could not trouble the fair maid
Who tremblingly and half afraid
Lay gazing on the village lights,
That glimmered o'er the neighboring heights,
In sleepless wo.

The summer's tender glow is fled,
The early budding flowers are dead,
But others, with their leaves scarce paled,
And their flushed bosoms all unveiled,
In bloom remain;
The hills are white with ripened rye,
The quails from out the meadows fly;
The mower's whistling, blithely gay,
Makes answer to the milkmaid's lay,
In vain—in vain!

'Tis one of autumn's lonesome eves,
And eddying drifts of withered leaves
Are scattered in the woods behind,
By the damp fingers of the wind;
But hope dies not,
And happy maids and youths are seen
Together straying on the green,
While trembling hand and blushing cheek
Tell better far than words can speak,
Each other's thought.

Winter is come—the homestead low
Is whitened by the falling snow;
In the warm hearth the cricket cries,
And the storm-shaken bough replies;
The watch-dog's bay
Is answered from the neighboring hill—
“'Tis very dark, the night, is chill,”
Is by the pale lips faintly said,
Of her beside whose dying bed
They kneel to pray.

Morning is up—her wing of fire
Is shivering o'er the village spire,
And in the churchyard down below
Shining along the mounds of snow
Serenely bright,
The maiden with the hair so brown,
And blue eyes softly drooping down,
Her dream, whate'er it was, unknown,
Shall lie beneath the cross of stone,
Ere close of night.