Classic Poem

When purple on the hill
Struggles the dwarf thistle—
A hand that grips below
Forbids its stem to grow—
From the spear thistle's crown
Shakes loose the thistledown.

Silver against blue sky
These ghosts of day float by,
Fitful, irregular,
Each one a silk-haired star
Blown by the wind at will
O'er the flower-nodding hill.

Vaguely like butterflies
Flowerwards they fall and rise,
Till by a trammelling bush
Caught on their onward rush
And from the wind's aid freed
They settle on their seed.

Not by the famished light
Of a moon-ridden night
But by clear sunny hours
Go these white ghosts of flowers,
Taking from the glad earth
Their burial and their birth.