Classic Poem

Count the flashes in the surf,
Count the crystals in the snow,
Or the blades above the turf,
Or the dead that sleep below!
These ye count — yet shall not know, —
While I wake or while I slumber, —
Where my thoughts and wishes go,
What her name, and what their number.

Ask the cold and midnight sea,
Ask the silent-falling frost,
Ask the grasses on the lea,
Or the mad maid, passion-crost!
They may tell of posies tost
To the waves where blossoms blow not,
Tell of hearts that staked and lost, —
But of me and mine they know not.