Classic Poem

I

Not all the trees are done, the branches mean,
The trunks begrimed and sodden, no, not all.
How fresh and, tho' a few, how prodigal
On yonder chestnut here and there are seen
White wisps, and, frilled about them, bits of green!
They colour on the deadness of the Fall,
They spring and with the 'lated swallows call
Happy next year into the year that's been.
O call not Nature spendthrift, and of these
Say not they bloom in error for the frost!
The sweetness of all things are promises
That sing our souls a little further on
Toward that which may be found in what is lost,
Which may come back again of what is gone.