Classic Poem

O a right fine day was yesterday;
So I had to make a song.
And now the weather is grown so gray
That silence would be wrong.

For when we have to eat and drink,
Indeed we have to sing!—
Yet hunger urges more to think
Long thoughts on everything.

And now yon feather shed without
Upon my window-sill,
Doth summon me, beyond all doubt,
To use it, for a quill!

Oh, reasons are not long to find,
—If reasons man must bring,—
Why every man, with song in mind,
Should have a mind to sing.

And Life, it is so very brief,
And hours they are so long,—
If you would have no time for grief,
Needs must you take to Song.