Classic Poem

How can I cease to sing? thou art not soon
Exhausted, fathomed, done with — like a girl
Who claims one sonnet on a golden curl,
And that's the scope and end of passion's tune!
Thou art as endless as the endless moon
That broods above the waters as they swirl,
Not twice the same, — now white, now silver-pearl,
Now golden-red: thou art my boundless June.

Thou art my love, my summer, my delight;
If to the end of time my spirit sang,
Yea, chanted upward to the August night,
And if round listening stars my harp-string rang,
One half of all my love would not be told, —
For it is countless as the sea-sands' gold.