Classic Poem

The little birds in copse and hatch
Were singing as their throats would break;
The little nestlings in the thatch
Were crying hungrily awake;
The little bantam on the green,
With sunlight ruddy in his comb,
Went strutting eager to be seen:
And thou, my love, wast coming home!

The beauteous warbling of the birds,
The simple things they had to say,
The callow beaks, so full of words,
Did make a music of the day:
That bit o' sunbeam bright as blood,
So like a feather in the comb,
Through all creation seemed to flood,
When thou, my love, wast coming home.

Oh, what a holding has the heart
To make the little seem so great!
The lagging minutes tick apart, —
And every tick's an hour to wait!
And all my heart goes up and down
Like to a ship upon the foam,
And perilous far's the way to town,
When thou, my dear, art coming home!

Be earth so little, and sun so great,
As wise astronomers have said: —
Together at eve they meet and mate,
And rosy, rosy is the bed.
The lonely star which lights the sky,
The glow-worm biding in the gloam,
Oh, what be these but thou and I? —
And thou, my dear, art coming home.