Classic Poem

'Twas a dark summer day
That was fading away,
And a mist flew over the plain;
And the meadows were shorn,
And the ripening corn
Was all wet with the slow-falling rain.
And I heard not a sound but the wood-thrushes strain,
As beside the hedgerows,
Where the woodbine and rose
And green oak were my shelter, I sunk to repose.

And with turf for my bed,
And with boughs o'er my head,
There I seem'd, while pond'ring, to see
The old Britons, to whom
Such a wide-spreading gloom
Of the oak, their most high-rated tree,
Afforded in summer a cool canopy;
While abroad in the mead
The wide herd or the steed
Came down from the mountain-top fastness to feed.

There the blue woady streaks
On their arms and their cheeks,
And their bows, I seem'd to behold;
And the temple that stood
In the dark-hallow'd wood,
And the mistletoe cut down with gold;
And the berry-fed Druid, and Bard as he told
Of the green oaken crown
Worn by men of renown
When the sword-wingèd car cut their enemies down.

For where hillocks may swell
From the wood-shaded dell,
On which only our own eyes may look;
With the brown summerleaze,
Or the wind-shaken trees,
Or the lily that floats on the brook:
The quick fancy creates for each green voiceless nook
Some unvoiced human face,
With its motion and grace,
To give life to the lovely but desolate place.