Classic Poem

Still the rock is in the forest,
With the branches overhead,
And the linden-tree, low-bending
By the sumac, flaming red.
In and out among the shadows
Glides the self-same woodland stream;
Still the bright-eyed squirrels listen,
And the beetles idly dream.

Do the squirrels hear a foot-fall,
Or the beetles flash their green
For a hand that parts the branches,
Letting sun-light in between?
Does the brook, with rippling lightness,
Catch two shadows—his and mine—
Give them to its circling eddies
With a murmuring divine?

Do the lichens, gray and clinging,
Hear a promise whispered there,
While the ferns look up and listen,
Laughing through the maiden-hair?
Do the birds that fill the distance,
Or the glints of summer blue,
Try to sing and shine love's gladness
As of old they used to do?

Ah, for comfort of all rovers,
Such as I, in stranger clime;
Sure as sunlight, new-made lovers
Roam to-day the summer's prime.
Heaven spare the fields their brightness!
Spare the brook its sparkling flow!
Light the woods with holy shadows
As it lit them long ago!