Classic Poem

Oh smiling land of the sunset,
How my heart to thy beauty thrills —
Veiled dimly to-day with the shadow
Of the greenest of all thy hills!
Where daisies lean to the sunshine,
And the winds a plowing go,
And break into shining furrows
The mists in the vale below;
Where the willows hang out their tassels,
With the dews all white and cold,
Strung over their wands so limber,
Like pearls upon chords of gold;
Where in milky hedges of hawthorn
The red-winged thrushes sing,
And the wild vine, bright and flaunting,
Twines many a scarlet ring;
Where, under the ripened billows
Of the silver-flowing rye,
We ran in and out with the zephyrs —
My sunny-haired brother and I.

Oh, when the green kirtle of May time,
Again over the hill-tops is blown,
I shall walk the wild paths of the forest
And climb the steep headlands alone —
Pausing not where the slopes of the meadows
Are yellow with cowslip beds,
Nor where, by the wall of the garden,
The hollyhocks lift their bright heads.
In hollows that dimple the hill-sides,
Our feet till the sunset had been,
Where pinks with their spikes of red blossoms,
Hedged beds of blue violets in,
While to the warm lip of the sunbeam
The cheek of the blush rose inclined,
And the pansy's soft bosom was flushed with
The murmurous love of the wind.

But when 'neath the heavy tresses
That swept o'er the dying day,
The star of the eve like a lover
Was hiding his blushes away,
As we came to a mournful river
That flowed to a lovely shore,
" Oh, sister, " he said, " I am weary —
I cannot go back any more! "
And seeing that round about him
The wings of the angels shone —
I parted the locks from his forehead
And kissed him and left him alone.