Classic Poem

Shall I be glad because the year is young?
The shy, swift-coming green is on the trees;
The jonquil's passion to the wind is flung;
I catch the Mayflower's breath upon the breeze.

The birds, aware that mating-time has come,
Swell their plumed, tuneful throats with love and glee;
The streams, beneath the winter's thraldom dumb,
Set free at last, run singing to the sea.

Shall I be glad because the year is young?
Nay; you yourself were young that other year:
Though sad and low the tender songs you sung,
My fond heart heard them, and stood still to hear.

Can I forget the day you said good-by,
And robbed the world and me for alien spheres?
Do I not know, when wild winds sob and die,
Your voice is on them, sadder than my tears?

You come to tell me heaven itself is cold, —
The world was warm from which you fled away, —
And moon and stars and sun are very old —
And you? — oh, you were young in last year's May:

Now you, who were the very heart of spring,
Are old, and share the secrets of the skies;
But I lack something that no year will bring,
Since May no longer greets me with your eyes.