Classic Poem

Though through the Pines a soughing wind,
There 's sun within the trembling breeze,
For continents do lie behind,
Of rarest Flowers and Strawberries;
Each chilling blast shakes Cherries down,
And tints the knurly Pear with brown.

Your sooty cloaks bright skies resume,
And weep with all-abandoned glee,
The darkening eve shoots rose perfume,
And cowslips nod, and Apple-tree
Outshines the tapestry of the King,
With red and white, a heaped thing.

Storm, rage, and fret, thou sullen March,
Be black, or blue, or furious red,
Springs roundly the o'erhanging arch
With violets clustering o'er its head;
Thy sullen frowns I highly cheer,
The green fields float, thy atmosphere.

And long behind the Wall I lay,
The gray stone wall with mosses laid,
And heard above my head the day
With eastern fingers twisting braid,
Swift flew the wind, but I was warm,
The sun was playing his gold charm.

There as I lay, a drowsy eye
Leered at me curious, till I sank
And into sleepy lands did fly,
While Lethe murmured down the bank,
'Twas warmer then than by the fire,
More music in Apollo's lyre.

I dreamed that in the Church I stood,
Dim were mine eyes the sun did blind,
I never went to church for good,
Nor this time left my rule behind;
I went to find my love who played,
The School girl like a timid maid.

They told me in the gallery then,
That I should find my love so dear;
My eyes were blind, and I was ten,
Yes ten good times the gallery near,
When sudden blindness o'er me came,
And still I went and still the same.

And when I reached the topmost stair,
Nor could my lovely Ellen see,
I shouted, Ellen, Ellen dear, —
She came from far behind to me;
You truant, was what I could say,
As in her sweet embrace I lay.

And I awoke, and the east wind
Did clamor through the old stone wall,
And as I slept, soft clouds had lined
The spanning of the azure Hall,
There's rain meseems within the sky,
Since I in Ellen's arms did lie.

Then blow cold March your trumpets shrill,
Send if you can a biting storm,
The nooks are sunny on the hill,
The mossy stones are smooth and warm,
For I can sleep and dream of thee,
Within whose heart is Spring for me.