Classic Poem

He is so old, so threadbare—and his coat
Gapes, feebly pinned around the gaunt, gray throat
While bleak as gusty March, shuffling and bowed,
He cries his pussy-willows through the crowd.

Poor little scions from the country-side
His aching fingers must have plucked and tied,
Yet prophets of new hope, while in his eyes
The only hope is—just that some one buys.

Sweet prophets, they, of sun and birth and song
That, in his heart, have all been dead so long!
A wintry wreck, an age-worn, weary thing
Bearing the very signs of youth and Spring!