Classic Poem

O Tree of pride,
Before your green to gold and orange fade,
And scarce one single leaf of summer's shade
Remains to hide
Robin or wren,
Give me one song of all your songs, that men
May take your beauty winter's fire beside.

For memory passes
Of even the loveliest things, bravest in show;
The mind to beauty most alert not know
How the August grasses
Waved, by December's
Glow, unless he see deep in the embers
The poet's dream, gathered from cold print's spaces.