Classic Poem

O SAD-VOICED winds that sigh about my door!
Ye mourn the pleasant hours that are no more,
The tender graces of the vanished spring,
The sultry splendor of long summer days,
The songs of birds, and streamlets murmuring,
And far hills dimly seen through purple haze.

Still as the shrouded dead the cold earth lies;
Sunless and sullen droop the troubled skies;
There is no sound within the leafless wood,
No mellow echo on the barren hill;
Hushed is the piping of the insect brood,
And hushed the gurgle of the meadow-rill.

By rutted lanes the tangled green is gone;
The vine no longer hides the naked stone,
But with its skeleton black fingers clings, —
Its clustered berries, withered on the stem,
Held sadly out like humble offerings,
Too poor for any hand to gather them.

On hill-side pastures where the panting sheep
Hid from high noon in piny shadows deep,
In level lawns with daisies overcast,
The haunts of belted bees and butterflies,
The sere grass whistles in the cutting blast,
The wrinkled mould in frozen furrows lies.

Now o'er the landscape dreary and forsaken,
Like some thin veil by unseen fingers shaken,
The snow comes softly hovering through the air,
Flake after flake in crossing threads of white,
Weaving in misty mazes everywhere,
Till forest, field, and hill are shut from sight.

O sad-voiced winds that sigh about my door!
I mourn with ye the hours that are no more.
My heart is weary of the sullen sky,
The leafless branches, and the frozen plain;
I long to hear the earliest wild-bird's cry
And see the earth in gladsome green again.