Classic Poem

Lo! in the tender child two charming flowers united!
In one common bud maiden and youth are concealed.
Gently the bond is relaxed, diverge the different instincts,
And from the blushes of grace passionate energy parts.
Grudge not the boy his sport, let him revel in boisterous ardour;
Natural vigour appeased, grace and refinement appear.
Bursting its swollen bud, the twofold flower emerges,
But the blooms demand more than thy passionate heart.
Swells the maidenly form in soft exuberant outline,
And her pride safeguards, stern as the girdle, her charms,
Shy as the tremulous roe that the horn alarms in the forest,
Man she hates and shuns, all unacquainted with love.
Stubbornly glares the youth from under his lowering eyebrows,
And for the fray prepared, stretches his every nerve.
Into the thick of the fight and into the dusty arena
Blithely he pushes his way honour and glory to win.
Nature, defend thy work! what should be for ever united
Surely will break apart but for thy fostering hand.
Mighty one, thou art there already; from angry confusion
Thou hast been able to call forth an harmonious peace.
Hushed is the sound of the chase, the day's perpetual murmurs
Die away, and the stars gently drop into the sphere.
Whispering sigh the reeds, the brooks flow murmuring onward,
And Philomela's song fills the harmonious grove.
What provokes this sigh from the heaving breast of the maiden?
Stripling, whence are the tears silently dimming thine eye?
Vainly an object she seeks for her soft confiding embraces,
And the rich ripe fruit bows to the earth with its weight.
Striving ever, the youth is consumed in the flame he has kindled,
Nor is the wasting glow cooled by a tempering air.
Lo! in the end they meet: 'tis love that has brought them together,
And to the wings of the God pinioned victory cleaves.
Love divine, it is thou who joinest humanity's blossoms,
Parted though they be, and dost unite them for aye!