Classic Poem

O grey-knotted oak, with ribbèd trunk,
That, hollowed by time, art now a shell,
Where we in our early days have sunk,
Upcrouching within thy wooden cell;
As there for a while we linger'd dry
From storm-driven rain that scudded by.

How gay is the path along thy ledge
When daisies besprinkle all the ground,
And thorns are in bloom along the hedge
Where lately the woodpecker has found
A bower within her doorway, high
In thee, as the rook is sweeping by.

At night on the moon-shown path below
Thy head only men-folk take their way,
Where women by choice would only show
Their comelier shapes while shines the day;
And not when thy broken moonshades lie
Where swiftly the meal-white owl sweeps by.

When flakes of grey moss that thou has shed
In storms are all dried by summer heat,
And footweary men beneath thy head
Would willingly sit to rest their feet,
Then happy, the while the sun is high,
Is he who beholds my love come by.