Classic Poem

A LONG the just-returning green
That fledges field and berm and brake
The purple-veined white violets lean,
Scarcely awake;

And pear and plum and apple trees,
Evoked to bloom before they leaf,
Lift cloudy branches filled with bees
Strange as new grief.

A thousand springs will poise and pass
And leave no track beneath the sun:
Some gray-eyed lad, cool-cheeked as grass,
Will watch each one,

And wonder, as I wonder here,
And find no clue I have not found,
And smile before he joins me, near
But underground.