Classic Poem

Once more the sweet glad springtime
Comes over the lonely land,
And hearts long worn and sorrow-frayed
Are glad for the breezes bland.

Once more the warm sun smites the earth
With kindly touch and smile,
And the budding loves are filling the woods
For many a gladdening mile.

Age and death and sorrow
Go when the torch warms in,
And youth and joy and love and hope
The lone worn spaces win.

And man, the tired wayfarer,
Turns from his grief and toil,
To greet the tender buds, and sweet,
That peep from the burgeoning soil.

Forgot are the ills that smite us,
In hours both lone and lorn,
For the joys of earth have seized the world
In the moods of love reborn.

How long, O mighty Mother,
With thy returning power,
How oft with magic of thy dream
Wilt thou bring back the hour,

Before the great sleep claims us,
Surcease from memory's ill,
When the joy no more with the crocus-bud
And Spring, flames over the hill?