Classic Poem

In the bright'ning wake of April
Comes the lovely, lovely May,
But the step of Annie Clayville
Falleth fainter day by day.
In despite of sunshine, shadows
Lie upon her heart and brow;
Last year she was gay and happy—
Life is nothing to her now!

When she hears the wild bird singing,
Or the sweetly humming bee,
Only says she, faintly smiling,
What have you to do with me?

Yet, sing out for pleasant weather,
Wild birds in the woodland dells—
Fly out, little bees, and gather
Honey for your waxen wells.
Softly, sunlit rain of April,
Come down singing from the clouds,
Till the daffodils and daisies
Shall be up in golden crowds;

Till the wild pinks hedge the meadows,
Blushing out of slender stems,
And the dandelions, starry,
Cover all the hills with gems.
From your cool beds in the rivers,
Blow, fresh winds, and gladness bring
To the locks that wait to hide you—
What have I to do with spring?

May is past—along the hollows
Chime the rills in sleepy tune,
While the harvest's yellow chaplet
Swings against the face of June.

Very pale lies Annie Clayville—
Still her forehead, shadow-crowned,
And the watchers hear her saying,
As they softly tread around:
Go out, reapers, for the hill tops
Twinkle with the summer's heat—
Lay from out your swinging cradles
Golden furrows of ripe wheat!
While the little laughing children,
Lightly mixing work with play,
From between the long green winrows
Glean the sweetly-scented hay.
Let your sickles shine like sunbeams
In the silver-flowing rye,
Ears grow heavy in the cornfields—
That will claim you by and by.
Go out, reapers, with your sickles,
Gather home the harvest store!
Little gleaners, laughing gleaners,
I shall go with you no more.

Round the red moon of October,
White and cold the eve-stars climb,
Birds are gone, and flowers are dying—
'Tis a lonesome, lonesome time.
Yellow leaves along the woodland
Surge to drifts—the elm-bough sways,
Creaking at the homestead window
All the weary nights and days.
Dismally the rain is falling—
Very dismally and cold;
Close, within the village graveyard
By a heap of freshest mould,
With a simple, nameless headstone,
Lies a low and narrow mound,
And the brow of Annie Clayville
Is no longer shadow crowned.
Rest thee, lost one, rest thee calmly,
Glad to go where pain is o'er—
Where they say not, through the night-time,
“I am weary,” any more.