Classic Poem

The checker'd shadows pattern on the grass,
The swaying shadows of sweet breeze-stirr'd leaves.
A variegated ever changing mass
Of diaper'd obscure their motion weaves.
A fairy fretwork o'er the summer grass
Is thus in mazy motion silent strewn,
As though the elves on gauzy wing who pass,
In airy tug-of-war their force had thrown.
As tho' their tiny hands had seiz'd each branch,
And marshalling each side in battle-line,
Their little wings fierce beat in effort stanch,
As back and forth, in and out, the branches twine.
Exhausted by the struggle they cease at last.
The fays at length have flown, the breeze is past.