Classic Poem

I lie in bed and count the stars
Through a window in the wall,
They are far away and small,
Lilliputian, folk-tale stars.

Where I am, it is quite still,
O and it is far and far
Where those dreaming stars are,
Out beyond the window-sill.

But the garden warm with rain
Blows into my hollow room,
Great boughs slip dew-loads of gloom.
To sparkle jubilant again.

Trees and shrubs and plants and flowers
Drink the glimmering spirit-rain,
Sing unto the stars that wane
Through the wet, delirious hours;

Roses red, star-drunken reel
Over trim white garden paths,
White roses in the trellis laths
Glowing bosoms half reveal;

Naiad-blue, frail, dancing bells
Ring a jingle-jingle rhyme
Faint upon the edge of thyme,
And the proud, plump lily swells.

Iris like a goddess bold
Purple drapes her beauty so
That her magic men may know —
From her still pool rising cold;

Scarlet Salvias swoon and drift,
Heavy with their maddening bloom,
Silver sanctuaries of gloom
Their heads the dew-sheathed peonies lift.

These drunken Pagans sing all night,
All but an enchanted row
Of hollyhocks that grow and grow
By the house-wall out of sight.

Not a sound or note they make,
But they're growing, growing fast,
Skyward they are marching, past
Pinks and foxgloves in their wake.

Pilgrim soldiers, you I fear
In the midnight deep and still,
As you mount the dark blue hill
Of the steep sky shining clear:

Your marching is an aweful hymn
In the garden of delight,
In the mad delirious night,
Giant and lonely Cherubim!

When the Sun comes you shall show
Great white wings and nimbus gold,
And your glory we'll behold
From the garden far below.