Classic Poem

In earlier days how oft,
In daydreams sweetly soft,
My mind would come and brood on this green ledge,
Down looking from below
These trees, in twofold row,
On Stour's ongliding stream and rustling sedge.

Though then, with heart full stout,
I had not yet sought out
My light of coming life, I yet could find
Where, were the ground my own,
Should rise, in brick or stone,
A pretty house, upshapen to my mind.

The trees, one, two, three, four,
Were not to reach my door,
But shade a road through grass, all wild and free,
The trees five, six, seven, eight,
Should reach my inner gate,
And lawn with flow'rs, and not without a tree.

The trees from nine to twelve
Are where the spade should delve
To ground the walls, well sunned through daily light,
Till lamps should flash the gloom
Of evening from the room
For smiling houselife, through the falling night.

In garden or in grove,
Wherever we may rove,
Some others may be there in mem'ry's thought,
But while we there may stay,
We ne'er are in their way,
For they to us, and we to them, are nought.