Classic Poem

I'll dig me here a noonday grave
Within the springing grass, —
Green walls that from the world shall save
And closely bury me, but wave
To all the winds that pass.

Here I will lie in fancy's death, —
A life away from care,
And but the summer breeze's breath
Shall sing for me, at rest beneath,
A tender dirge and rare.

Here Time shall stay its course, with Space
Asleep in depths of sky, —
The present of a sunbeam's trace,
The past no more than memory's grace,
The future — by and by.

Sweet purging of the sun-lit wind,
From worldly stain and taint! —
My sins a sudden flight shall find,
And leave me pure in heart and mind,
A gentle summer saint.