Classic Poem

Hold thou thy loved one through the summer night;
Soon 'twill be light;
The armies of the stars will own defeat:
The sun will frighten love from out the skies,
With flaming eyes:
But yet the night was sweet!

The velvet lips that rested once on thine,
With touch divine,
Turn elsewhere. Will love pause, though tears entreat?
Through all time, never! — Yet in days gone by
(Yes, one swift sigh!)
Those lips to thee were sweet.

One hour of rapture, and the sun's warm breath;
Then sunless death;
Death for the poppies and the golden wheat:
Death for the larkspur gathering pearls of dew,
And pansies blue:
Yet pansies find life sweet!

Places where love in the old bright days was fair,
And joys that were,
Have one same sombre message to repeat;
The grass will shortly wave above our tomb
With green wild bloom —
And yet the grass is sweet!

The honeysuckle in the hedge last year
Loved to be near
Those lovers whispering on the garden-seat.
Divided are those loving hearts to-day!
Sundered for aye!
Yet was not last year sweet?

The fierce-eyed sun has risen, and we look back
Upon love's track:
Were ever starlit tender moods discreet?
Could ever flower of fragrant passion bear
The morn's keen air?
(Yet passion-flowers are sweet!)

The summer mocks us with its wealth of blue,
And wondrous hue,
And fervent fierce unsympathetic heat;
The blossoms mock us with their wealth of sheen,
Gay midst the green —
Yet starlit nights are sweet!

Love and all tender joys will soon be o'er,
And we no more
Shall thrill at the approach of woman's feet;
Quiet we soon in the chill earth shall lie,
My love and I —
And yet my love is sweet!