Classic Poem

I know what Nature is and her largesse.
I know her infinite beauty too;
Her freedom perfect and her tenderness everlasting.
My soul keeps in its secret chamber
The madness of a wind-swept hill-top
Where, from under a shading laurel,
We watched the winds lure the white clouds,
Their lovers, down into the caverns of the sky.
Little birds fluttered in and out the leafy coverts;
Hawks skilfully slanted to the wind
And squirrels ran about, sitting erect,
Suddenly questioning.
Flowers blossomed there without a governor, and the madronya trees
With beautiful, pink limbs, smooth as the limbs of nymphs,
Caught the sky upon their green jade mirrors.
There are hills for all and oaks for all,
And the airy blue covers the world.

We saw the rivers, silver threads in the tapestry.
I may go down to these and lie by them,
To refill the vessels of my soul;
Listening to the secret conversations of the waters
Which carry me afar, enchanted and enthralled;
Like half-heard, mystic, murmured incantations
Of soft-shod, hushed magicians
Who lift me sleeping, and in Lethean langour
Bear me unto the perfect meadows
Where white-handed ones await my coming,
Hiding within the fragrant fringes;
Slender rushes, mint and mallow;
Hearing the continuous warble of shy nymphs hidden;
And far, faint laughter.
My brothers and my sisters may not go down.
The earth is free: inviting all.
But these, my brothers
And my sisters are not free.
O young lovers,
I, who soon am not to be,
I call on you to lie upon the grass
And listen to the mutter of the river.
Little children, come splash your pearly bodies
With bright crystals.
Hear the indignant magpies screaming
From the willows, royal fellows,
In black-and-white, who were once, surely,
A prince in ermine and black velvet.
All the beasts and fowl of the Desert
In the evening come here thirsty
And the river refuses not its life to any.
Far down its course it is led out
Upon alfalfa-fields, where poplars
Watch about the strictly ordered garden.
An old man stands upon the bank
And to him the voices of the water murmur, " Peace. "
They are calling to him the inescapable call
Which the soul struggles forever to answer.
But, to the haggard ones who toil as slaves
The soliloquy of the waters
Comes grumbling, growling, menacing: the voice of Moloch.
" Work! Work! Work! "
Endless as the river's flowing:
" Toil! Toil! Toil! "
Ceaseless as the river's murmur:
" Never! Never! Never! "
To know peace or beauty, or the leisure which builds the soul.
The workers know not the song of the waters,
Nor the sympathy of the grass.
They do not bathe their souls in the pools of leisure;
Nor ever cast their dull and sodden eyes
Where the clouds, reckless, set their silver sails
For the voyage of discovery.
In the fat and fecund meadows
The carefully tended cattle lie among buttercups.
But the laborers are offal cast away.
As fledglings stir within the nest,
So the Poor stir a moment
But are quickly devoured by a dark coming eagle.
If by chance they cheat the hammer of the years
They know not the sweet, respected weakness of old age.
They are an encumbrance with feeble knotted hands.
Age cannot work, and Death delays too long.