Classic Poem

Through morning meads we broke the dew,
And heard the hidden skylark sing,
Oh, goodly sound, when, having you,
I wanted for no other thing!
And ah, how plainly cried his tongue—
“All grief is old, all joy is young!”

Through moving mists around the wood
The daylight came in grey disguise,
A pallid ghost. Then as we stood,
I marked the hunger of your eyes;
And all your thoughts had flown away,
Back to the East and far Cathay!

For ever in your veins must run
The rover's blood, so strange to me!
You heard the call: you saw the sun
Rise red across the Indian sea;
So sundered stood we, side by side—
Two fates which seas and lands divide!

And now alone through twilit mead,
I break the dew: yet not alone,
Still, as the skylark sings, I read
As fair a meaning in its tone;
For now he sings of you, my dear,
“The near is far, the far is near!”