Classic Poem

Oaks of the voiceless ages!
Precepts! Poems! Pages!
Lessons! Leaves and volumes!
Arches! Pillars! Columns
In the corridors of ages!
Grand patriarchal sages!

Their Druid beards are drifting
And shifting to and fro,
Down to their waists in zephyrs,
That bat-like come and go;
The while the moon is sifting
A sheen of shining snow
On all these blossoms lifting
Their blue eyes from below.

The night has cast his mantle
Down on the day's remains;
For he lies dead before us.
I seen his red blood stains
At twilight drifting o'er us
And these oaks chant above him
In stately, solemn strains,
For ah! these Druids love him,
That knightly day that's slain,
And they will robe in sable
Till he shall rise again.

I have no tears or sighing,
For he was not kind to me—
This dead day here before us,
O mossy Druid tree
With dark brow bending o'er us!
He was not kind to me,
I will not wail his dying.

No. It is not green leaves rustling
That you hear lisping there,
But bearded, mossy Druids
Counting beads in prayer.
No. Not a night-bird singing,
Nor breeze a green bough swinging:
But that bough holds a censer
And swings it to and fro;
'Tis Sunday eve, remember,
That's why they chant so low.