Classic Poem

Now let the earth take
Into its care,
All that it travailed for,
All that it bare.

Leaves of the forest,
Yellow and red,
The drifting and scattered,
The dying and dead;

Grass of the hill-slopes,
Sickled and dried,
Vines that over-night
Blasted and died;

Blossoms and flowers
Nipped with the cold,
Trees that have fallen
A century old;

Moths of the candle-flame,
Gnats from the stream,
Wraiths from the moonlight,
Spectres of dream;

All that the earth gave,
All that it bare—
With all its far kindred
Of water and air.

And in those rutted acres
Which the heart's red blood has sown,
Soon shall the bramble flourish
Where the gentian had grown;
And wherever ran the myrtle,
Let the dust of thistles be shed,
For these, with nightshade and burdock,
Shall fast cover the dead.