Classic Poem

Sweet Laughter! Sweet Delight!
My heart is like a lighted Inn that waits
Your swift approach . . . and at the open gates
White Beauty stands and listens like a flower.
She has been dreaming of you in the night,
O fairy Princes; and her eyes are bright.
Spur your fleet horses, this is Beauty's hour!
Even as when a golden flame up-curled
Quivers and flickers out in a dark place,
So is it with the flame of Beauty's face--
That torch! that rose! that wonder of the world!
And Love shall weep to see--when he rides by
Years hence (the time shall seem as a bird's flight)--
A lonely Inn beneath a winter sky.
Come now, sweet friends! before the summer die.
Sweet Laughter! Sweet Delight!