Classic Poem

I.

Where the pinewoods wave,
And the white streams rave,
I came in deepest gloom:
I hated my Youth
For its sweet untruth,
And laid it in a tomb.
I pined for a poet's troubled morrow,
And wept, ay, wept for the want of sorrow.

II.

Where the pinewoods wave,
And the white streams rave,
I came when I was old:
For the jar of life
Is a gladdening strife
Which makes not a poet cold.
I had buried my youth hasty and erring, —
Oh! have buried days a disinterring?

III.

But the pinewoods waved,
And the white streams raved, —
They told me in my need,
That softness and feeling
Were not soul-healing,
And so it was decreed, —
That the marvellous flowers of Christian duty
Should grow on the grave of buried beauty.