Classic Poem

VINES overlay
With webs of trailing green the wheat-field gray
In yon brave mount who shoulders for a cloak
Chestnut and oak,
An idle challenge idly answering
The cuckoos sing —
Till in my eyes an English copse appears
Miraged in tears.

The sea unseen
Twinkles imagined where the last hills lean;
Each far white hamlet russet-roof'd reclines
Nested in vines.
Murmurs out of the river-gully creep
Whispering " Sleep " ;
The fountain patters from a failing jet
— And yet, and yet!

Only with these
The multitudinous hum of labouring bees,
And woodmen's voices indistinctly heard,
Sound without word;
Fresh elder with the sun-dishevelled roses
A spell composes:
Dreams entering by the sense the brain beset,
— And yet, and yet!

Of scenes that still
The fretful Reason and the peevish Will,
Electuary against Solitude
There is not brewed.
O Fiend and Angel double-faced, whose eyes,
As April skies
Trim deftly in an hour from joy to sadness,
Look Peace or Madness!