Classic Poem

Such fierce shocks pave the way
For our departure. All seems different now:
On sunlit mountain-height and leafy bough
Death sets his seal to-day.

In even the slightest things we mark a change:
The value of all things alters here;
Far more familiar grows the sphere
That seemed remote and strange.

Life's roots are loosened by successive shocks
Even so the pine that braves the stormiest blast,
That lightning rends not from the rocks,
Falls to a puff of summer wind at last.