Classic Poem

But on the star, the light of whose sun
Has not yet reached the earth, and may never reach it,
I come in to breakfast clean of body and rich of mind,
And hungry with the morning air.
My boy sits before a bowl of purple wild pansies,
And my girl has a slender green jar of red poppies,
Whose hairy stalks spring from a blue cluster of speedwells.
They have been out in the fields, barefoot in the long wet grass,
The meadow foxtails brushing their legs with a silky touch;
And they shook the jewels from the heart of the clover,
As they passed and sang with the birds.
They have seen the robin still on her nest in the ivy-hedge,
Looking at them from her ivy-leaf door
With stubborn, half-frightened eyes;
And they have gone on and gathered
More than the poppies and pansies and speedwells,
More than the primroses and violets
From the banks of the stream for their mother
— They lie in a bowl before her,
As she serves them with bread and butter and honey —
They have taken something, too, of the heart of the season
Into their hearts;
Its leaves and grasses will always be green there;
Its blossoms will always be bright;
Its birds will always be singing their morning song;
But more than all these,
The intimate sense of a presence will always be with them.

O my wife,
You sit there, happy in your service,
Giving to each as we need them,
Fruit and milk and eggs and bread and butter and honey:
Can I ever love you enough
For your understanding and your forbearance?
Can I ever repay you
For your loving kindness, O my golden-hearted?
O my young ash-tree, my lilac blossom, my golden wheatfield!
You have entrusted to me a treasure of many memories,
And I have not been careful of them.
I have opened the store, and given them out to my friends,
All those who would accept them,
And they have grown in beauty as I touched them;
And the frail bloom of them,
That might have perished in darkness, fallen to dust,
Has become a wonderful, indestructible word;
And you have forgiven me.
But when I love you and you love me,
They glow still, fused in our love;
Their warmth is about us;
And the chairs and tables, the pictures and sculptures,
The books and bookcases,
All the pleasant things that furnish and comfort our lives,
Love through us and in us.
Oh, my heart yearns to you, and a great breath swells my chest.
See, I will leave my chair, and with my hand on the door-latch,
I will turn and smile at your eyes that watch me trustfully.
I will go and gather a rose for you,
A white rose flushed with red
And tinged with the gold of sunburn —
A rose with a firm heart and a lovely curve of petals;
And from the tree, as I come to it,
A nightingale will fly away.
And when I return with it in my hand,
And offer it to you silently,
Your eyes will thank me,
And you will smell it, and you will gaze at
The violets and primroses the children have gathered,
And your hand will seek mine, almost timidly, and caress it.