Classic Poem

I

Wind of the Saints, the day makes ready now
to die, and on twin trees thy breezes light,
and gently loose the leaves from off the bough.

Now thou dost touch them scarcely, now dost quite
detach them; some fall singly, others hie
away in flocks, as birds do in their flight.

At thy assault there's one vast fleeing, in sky,
on earth, and mid the clods a rustling sound,
a futile trembling, as of wings, nearby.

Shrieking they go, and, whirling round and round,
in a mad vortex, restlessly they ride;
they fall with gentle yielding to the ground.

Ofttimes it seems that they would backward stride
in leaps, but thou hast caught them then, and led
them with thee; all are fallen, and day has died:

that thou dost know full well, wind of the Dead!

II

There comes upon the wind a song of prayer,
and with it go the leaves, though sad they be,
calling aloud, mid rain and tempest's blare:

" But fleeting garments of ourselves are we:
where it has been, our life is ever there.

In vain the wind has blown us from the tree:
there we shall green again in spring time fair. "

And now the dead leaves go away from here:
they moan, while deepening darkness glooms the air.

" We come not, when again shall bloom the year:
we go from here, and in oblivion lie.

Life was naught but a swift delusion drear.
The tree is dead. Farewell! Farewell for aye! "

The day is dead, and, too, the evening dies.
The chanted song is no more wafted by;
and heaven's splendor on the black earth lies.

III

The wind now finds its pathway blocked, by leaves
and stars. The trees have disappeared from sight,
one and the other. A mighty shade one sees.

I see one tree. I contemplate its height.
It stands alone, and springs forth from a veil
of mist eternal, and fills the infinite.

It stretches out its unseen branches pale,

from which are hanging worlds on every side.
A mighty breath makes the frail leaflets quail;

and, ever trembling, shine the leaves, like wide,
bright flames. Some fall o'er sparkling downward ways,
in the dark azure caves below to hide.

Absorbed, bewildered, there I stand and gaze
beneath the radiant crown on Creation's head.
I hear a cry. Perchance a leaf still sways

upon a branchlet of the tree that's dead.

Oft in my walk I saw his circles black,
when swift the hawk swooped downward from the sky;
and echoing notes I heard from the azure track, light, more on high.

Where it is free and lonely, in the height,
thou pourest forth, unseen from where I walk,
thy song, O lark, afar above the flight dark of the hawk.

Clouds, in my walk, that pressed with heavy might,
I felt, as on the lifeless body lies
the dark veil; and I heard an echo light, higher in the skies.

There in the skies, where it is lonely, lark,
and clear, thou liftest up thy song; where none,
afar above the clouds in their flight dark, stealeth the sun.

A hymn forever, then, a hymn for aye,
in the walk of my life, pure, winged, strong,
above the pain, than destiny more high ... deathless the song.