Classic Poem

Ye clouds that hide, with hasty flight,
The high-gone moon's unsteady light;
Ye roaring nightwinds, fitting round
The rocking tree with hollow sound,
While dashing down the scatter'd drops
Of driven rain from high boughtops,
A darksome night ye make for me,
For Mary comes not to the tree.

For wat'ry grass now waves its head
Too wet for her light feet to tread,
And brimful brooks, that wildly roll
Outbreaking from their banks' controul,
In ruffled sheets, are washing wide
The willows by the water side,
In floods o'erflowing, like a sea,
Her footway over to the tree.

I saw her soft looks out before
The sun this morning at the door,
To see the flail, with flying staff,
Swing fleetly round, and fan-blown chaff
Sink feather light in hov'ring falls
Before the old barn's moss-green walls,
And took her token she would be
In time to-night below the tree.

So spend ye raving storms your spite
In speed upon the earth to-night;
Ye wavy waters roll away
Ere wanes another longsome day,
That moonspread light may lure once more
My lovely Mary from her door,
And softly shine to let her see
Her safest footway to the tree.