Classic Poem

“Whose pretty pawn is this
And what shall be done to redeem it?”
C HILDREN'S Game

I am immoderately fond of this place.
My thoughts run under it like the roots of trees and grasses,
They spread above it like fluttering, inconsequential leaves.
Spring comes to me with the blossoming of the snow-drop under the arbor-vitae.
So all Springs come, and ever must do.
Spring ripens with the crocus cups on the South lawn,
Blue and white crocuses, remains of an ancient garden,
By the side of an ancient house—
So they told me, so I believed.
That shadowy structure holds a distant charm,
I see its walls printed upon the air, in certain moods,
And build it back into solidity with awed enjoyment.
But that is fairy-tale or history,
And I am more concerned with recollection.

How perpetually the seasons mark themselves!
Tulips for April,
Peonies for May.
The pillar-rose has not lacked its robin's nest since I remember,
Nor the pink horse-chestnut its mob of honey-bees:
The boom of them is essence of sleep and flowers,
Of Summer sleep and poetry mixed together.
Yet there are differences even in the repeated lilt of time.
I seem to think the humming-birds are fewer,
And I have not seen a luna-moth for years.

Now, suddenly, here is a grosbeak
Perched in the double-cherry near the door.
He suggests that I look him over,
His striped black and white,
His rose-red triangle of waistcoat.
He is clearly on view for commendation,
Displaying himself as though I were his wife or his tailor
Observing to pronounce a verdict.
I had contemplated second childhood,
But scarcely believed it imminent,
And here I am plunged in it.
A rose-breasted grosbeak indeed,
And the last I saw was in that long, first childhood.
Senility may have its compensations,
I shall hunt up my old butterfly-net
And prowl about to-night seeking luna-moths.