Classic Poem

White with the starlight folded in its wings,
And nestling timidly against your love,
At this soft time of hush'd and glimmering things,
You call my soul a dove, a snowy dove.

If I shall ask you in some shining hour,
When bees and odors through the clear air pass,
You'll say my soul buds as a small flush'd flower,
Far off, half-hiding, in the old home-grass.

Ah, pretty names for pretty moods; and you,
Who love me, such sweet shapes as these can see;
But, take it from its sphere of bloom and dew,
And where will then your bird or blossom be?

Could you but see it, by life's torrid light,
Crouch in its sands and glare with fire-red wrath,
My soul would seem a tiger, fierce and bright
Among the trembling passions in its path.

And, could you sometimes watch it coil and slide,
And drag its colors through the dust a while,
And hiss its poison under-foot, and hide,
My soul would seem a snake——Ah, do not smile!

Yet fiercer forms and darker it can wear;
No matter, though, when these are of the Past,
If as a lamb in the Good Shepherd's care
By the still waters it lie down at last.