Classic Poem

I

I SING to the joy of the By-Ways,
The road that is grass overgrown,
That leads from the dust of the high-ways
To the meadow that never is mown;
The subtle seduction of places
Where Silence her magic has wrought,
And the Dream, or the Vision, effaces
The thralldom of thought.

II

The hour we wantonly wasted,
How rich in its passing, how fleet!
The fruit that we should not have tasted,
How perilous transient and sweet!
The dim and unfathomed recesses
Where flushes the bud of desire,
The swift, half acknowledged caresses,
The moth and the fire!

III

Then search for the flower that grows not
Except where the pathway is blind,
And the breath of the blossom that blows not
Where its beauty is easy to find;
The thrill of its scent aromatic
No gardens of ease ever give, —
Where Life is fulfilment ecstatic,
And to love is to live!

IV

For the Heart is the Lord of the By-Ways
And bids us forever to climb
To the distant and delicate shy-ways
Where even the Conqueror, Time,
Must pause on his march for a minute,
To yield us the consummate right
For the sake of the bliss that is in it
To our Dream of Delight.