Classic Poem

THE winds are wet and wild,
Cloud is on cloud up-piled,
Mid-winter settles on the barren moor;
Stript are the trees and drear,
No bird-note greets the ear,
Black Boreas nurses much his hidden store.

I'll take my coat and go
Across a field or so,
Pass o'er the stile, and wander up the lane,
If haply I may find,
Shelter'd from sleet and wind,
The first dear flower, the prophet of the plain.

A tear is in mine eye,
As days of old pass by,
When on my mountain I would wander free,
Singing my simple song
The mossy mounds among,
Or stretch'd lay-haunted 'neath the hawthorn tree.

O, those were happy hours,
With Nature and the flowers,
Scanning dear nooks where the first bud might bloom,
While o'er my native steep
High solemn sounds did sweep,
The mountain minstrel harping mid the broom.

But when I really found
Upon the snowy ground
The early primrose blushing as with fear,
How mused I on the moor,
My joy-cup running o'er!
What summer music trickled on mine ear!

Ah, little knew I then
The selfish ways of men,
How Merit pined when clad in plain attire,
Whilst Pomp in dazzling dress
Won shout and fond caress,
With few to heed the poet and his lyre.

I pass an old farm-place,
And near the hedge's base
A single yellow primrose opes its eye;
The sight is bliss supreme,
A holy light doth stream
Poetic round me, fairies pass me by.

I pause to mark it well,
Out-peeping from its cell,
Here at the foot of this high hedge-heap old.
One leaf, like sheltering hand,
Doth close before it stand,
As if to screen it from the wind and cold.

I love the first wild flower,
By sheltering bank or bower,
With deeper feeling than my muse may sing:
So let me weep with thee
Where none my tears may see,
And learn the lessons thou dost gently bring.

How long I day by day
From man to steal away,
To muse through meads or down the moorland lane!
Thou precious little flower,
Coming in wintry hour,
My priest to-day in Nature's solemn fane!

Religion dwells around;
Through Nature's mighty bound
Her voice is heard o'er every fragrant slope,
On wild, in waving wood,
By river, rock, and flood,
Divinely sweet, filling the soul with hope.

O bless thee, darling, now,
Shining on Winter's brow,
Cheering my weakness as I wonder here!
One leaf from Sharon's Rose
Shall surely screen my woes,
Till heaven's full anthem rolls upon mine ear.