Classic Poem

When I have watched the people crawling by
So haggard visaged, and so wrinkled-browed,
With eyes that see naught save the greedy ground,
With ears that hear naught save their toiling feet,
To whom there can exist no other world
Besides the one of Commonplace and Real,
Where Fancy's idle beams ne'er fleck the gloom
With dancing, changing, lights of flitting dreams,
I do rejoice, for I, with all my woes
May see the sights and hear the sounds they miss,
For I may see the beauty in a cloud
Or tiny flower or slender blade of grass,
May watch the tree-tops whispering with the winds,
The slanting rain drops greyed by solemn skies,
And find insistent joyousness in all;
May speechless stand before some landscape grand,
Where mountains lift their regal heads in peace,
Enwrapped at morn and frail, sheer, robes of mist,
Enwrapped at even in voluptuous garb,
For I may hear the songs of little things,
The cricket, locust, tree-toad and the bird,
That sings within the woods at summer dawns
And twitters sleepily at summer dusks;
For I may hear the yearnings of the soul
Within the voice or throbbing violin
Until the ear so wrung by chords of joy
Comes nigh to bursting in delicious pain;
For I may feel the fierceness of great love
With all its agony and rare delights,
Its dire despair and lightning heights of joy.
What though I die mid racking pain,
And heart seared through and through by grief,
I still rejoice for I, at least, have lived.