Classic Poem

How gaily fair we saw the land
In glare of flow'ry summer look,
With roaming cows to stalk by meads,
Or brows of fields, beside the brook,
In wind that whirl'd and curl'd,
And wildly drove about our heads
White drifts of dust, in peck by peck,
Or else upsprung with hay in meads,
And flung it up about our neck,
In playing round the summer ground.

As water flow'd below our feet
And show'd our shades in line and hue,
A gust awoke in sudden flight
And broke them up away from view,
In playsome whirl and curl;
And while, with darksome shade, the sun
Once mark'd our shapes within the glade,
The wind brought by a shading cloud
On high, and hid them, shade by shade,
In streamings soft, with clouds aloft.

The winds may roll the thistledown
By knoll or mead, in summer light,
Or else may blow, in winter days,
The snow against my blinded sight,
With many a whirl and curl;
Or under rock or smooth-wall'd tow'r
May mock my song, or sound my call,
Or sway through hours of lonesome night
My flow'rs in bloom, by ground or wall,
Onstreaming soft, and blowing oft.