Classic Poem

Green elm, whose shade, in open light,
Steals o'er the mead from morn till night,
As I have known it reach at rest
O'er rimy grass-blades to the west,
Or under low-gone suns to lie
Outlength'ning to the eastern sky;
O let thy shelt'ring shroud, dear tree,
Yet shed its airy gloom on me,
As once it fell around the feet
Of forms I never more shall meet,
In quick-limb'd youth, all laughing loud,
Below thy hillock-screening shroud;
While o'er the water's weedy bed
The willow bent its grey-leav'd head,
And dragonflies were darting through
The drooping rushes, dazzling blue.

For while the summer ground is green
With grass below thy midday screen,
How fain am I to come and find
The few that time has left behind,
Of those whose well-known tongues can tell
Their tales of all that once befell
The laughing lad, and giggling lass,
That lean'd below thee on the grass.

But when the moonlight marks anew
Thy murky shadow on the dew,
So slowly o'er the sleeping flow'rs
Onsliding through the nightly hours,
While smokeless on the houses height
The higher chimney gleams in light,
Above yon reedy roof where now,
With rosy cheeks, and lily brow,
No watchful mother's ward, within
The window, sleeps for me to win:

O then, how soothing will it seem
To see thy meadow and its stream,
While near thy shadow no bird cleaves
The nightly air that shakes thy leaves:
And, bringing back the mellow light
Of bygone days in darksome night,
In wordless thought to draw the dead
Where daylight's living do not tread.
For those who look with heavy heart
On happy times that soon depart,
In fancy's fairy dreams may leave
The faithless world in which they grieve,
And live o'er days the mourning mind
Like most to look to back behind;
And I will seek some youthful scene
Of summer on thy hillock green.