Classic Poem

Does he remember? 'Twas a golden summer,
Summer among the proud, pine-crested hills,
Where the gay south wind, idle, playful hummer,
Laughed, like a truant, with the garrulous rills.

Young vetches, clambering up the broad-leaved guelder,
Peeped roguish, like the blue eyes of a child,
And 'neath the white tent of the blooming elder,
Stood the wakerobin like an Arab wild.

Does he remember? Nature, holy teacher!
Told through each living thing her lofty lore;
But one voice only answered the beseecher
That still had begged a benefaction more.

Kind words he spake—kind words, though never loving—
Which, o'er the billowy After, drear and blind,
Came softly back, like sea-gulls to the roving,
Telling of all the green land left behind.

On her young forehead, sorrow-sore and throbbing,
She wears the prickly Calvary-crown of fame;
And praises follow all her steps, but sobbing
Through the blank night, she breathes one hoarded name,

Thinking how gladly she would yield her title
To fame's ambrosial food and brilliant bays,
If she might feast her soul on one requital,
The simple therf-bread of his earnest praise.