Classic Poem

I came upon four tall young kings
Filling the wood with smiling state,
Ringed round with dark, furred councillors,
Great servants of the great.

They drew the light from all the sky
To flood that circle of dark wood:
I think that grey day was hard-pressed
To serve their golden mood.

They did not ask me to come in,
They did not notice me, indeed,
Nor tell me what they plotted there,
Nor what fire-hearted need

Had made them turn from hickory-trees
Whom I had found in friendly talk
With the tall pines that ringed them round
On many a summer walk,

To kings of light intolerable
(Yet joyous, young, and void of wrath),
Bright gods—I slipt away and left
My shoes beside the path.