Classic Poem

Step out from your curtain of silvered shadow,
Arise from your couch in the wood's dim haze.
Oh, shine upon new-mown meadow
And orchard with tender gaze.

You come and the dew exhales to meet you,
The sap floods up into plant and tree,
The bosoms of women entreat you,
Your might's in the swelling sea.

You rule the soul; there is none that seeks not
To follow you all your journey long,
Each breast that loves and speaks not
Is brimmed with a flood of song.

The anxious farmer your orb is watching,
As nightly you guard o'er his ripening grain;
Your red means a storm approaching,
Your paleness foretelleth rain.

Now a herald-like voice at the midnight hour
Seems to cry: — He's coming, prepare ye his feast! —
He, a god of transcendent power,
And I, his worshipping priest.

Methinks in ancestral ages I'm dwelling,
When in days of the legended long ago,
Men prayed to the awe-compelling
Dream powers in the moon's soft glow.

Each grove its wild incense to you upraises,
The mist of their sighs the fountains bring;
All earth unites in your praises,
O fruit-crownèd Harvest King!