Classic Poem

How shall I climb thee, hill of flowers and clover?
— I muse with cloud-wings furled against the sun.
A pause too still for earth hath stolen over.
In the divine quiet, Nature, little one,
Draws breath before the coming of thy lover.

Say, shall I come with wings from plains of flowers
Where poets' thoughts make a rain-bow wilderness?
Shall I bring songs from where the diamond showers
And grey skies mix the sun with tenderness?
And shall the souls of many larks be ours?

Or shall I tell thee of the midmost wailing
Of an indignant and unpitied sea?
Wet thee with what did wet me of the unfailing
Long wave-despairs that fare forsakenly,
Passion with pain that follows unavailing?

Over the round hill-tops shall I come to thee,
High-hearted, with light feet upon the thyme,
A child, an impulse sprung from spring to woo thee,
Young with all youth, O hill that I would climb,
With morning thoughts from Morning throned to sue thee?

Shall I rend clouds for garments to enfold thee,
Bind round thy brows the bent and crying skies?
Darkened with my dark hours shall I behold thee
Through all the great rains of my passionate eyes?
With arms of pain and tempest shall I hold thee?

Shall I come cold with news of dawn, o'ertaking
The tired stars? From my soul's sleep shall I call
Things that we guess not? — as the bird half-waking
Sings out of dreams those deepest songs of all
From some unknown sleep-heaven i' the dark day-breaking?

Shall I be all but silence, fitfully failing
Flickering in pale air like a dying light?
Shall I come as the west wind cometh, trailing
The day's gold robes thro' half the heavenly night,
Till round thy brows all the cold east is paling?

Or shall I be the fervid South-wind for thee?
Summer-long thro' the sunlights shall I stream?
Swift, but serene as beauty blow before thee,
Move among all the still stars with my dream,
Bring souls of deep South-summers to adore thee?

Shall I storm, love-strong, thy small wildernesses,
Thy humble heights, bare to all suns and showers?
Sport with thy timorous thoughts and poet-guesses,
Shaking thy shortest grass and little flowers,
Rioting in thy dreamiest lonelinesses?

— Or loiter where thy longest lawn reposes,
Where the dim plain is gentlest from thy feet,
Wait thy slow sweetness, watch as it uncloses,
Tarry thy silence, quiet with pale June heat,
Wait for the opening of thy wan wild roses?

— Oh, with a paean of sound I will renown thee,
With waves of lights and shadows I will drown thee.
And like a wind, a wild wind I will crown thee.