Classic Poem

The goddess slept. About her where she lay
Dead pansies, fragrant still, and the myriad rose:
Adream 'mid the fallen drift, she woke one day,
And the blooms stirred, seeing her eyes unclose.

The oaks and beeches stood in disarray,
Gaunt, spectral, dark, in dismal phantom rows;
She smiled, and there was a shimmer 'mid the grey
And sudden fall of the first winter-snows.

But when, tired with the icy blossoms of the air,
She slept once more, and all the snow was over,
She dreamed of Spring and saw his sunlit hair,
And heard the whisper of her laughing lover:
But while she dreamed, the dead blooms had grown fair
And Christmas-roses made a veil above her.