Classic Poem

When hastily upon thy page I gaze,
Then starts to welcome me the long-endeared,
The golden forms which to mine eyes appeared
In boyhood's dreams and in my childhood's days.
Again I see the sacred minster raise
Its height to heaven, by German faith upreared;
Again the organ and the chimes are heard,
And, low between, love's sweet complaining lays.
And nimble imps in swarms my eye perceives,
Who clamber freakish round the minster towers
To ruin trellised stone and dainty flowers.
Yet though you strip the oak of all its leaves,
And steal the verdant glory of its hue,
Comes a new spring, 'twill bower itself anew.