Classic Poem

Now comes the first chill whisper of the end,
While yet the woods are green and skies are blue;
While under loads of corn great waggons bend,
And sunshine makes us glad the whole day through.
The trees are full of leaf and of delight,
Yet through them sighs the forecast of the time
When the lean branches shall be wondrous, white
With winter's lovely radiant frost and rime.

The fallen leaves as yet are hardly missed,
The rest will fade--until the woods are bare,
And the dim glades where summer lovers kissed,
Forget how leafy and divine they were.
And in our souls come whispers of despair,
"Failure again--failure for evermore!
Leaves only for one summer's space are fair,
No flower can live to see the fruit it bore."

Yet every spring millions of flowers have birth,
And every autumn brings its fruits and sheaves;
But when the fruit and grain make glad the earth,
Dead are the flowers, and falling are the leaves.
Though all our lives we see our dear dreams die,--
Each noble dream brings fruit. It may not be
The fruit we hoped it would be followed by,
But the fruit lasts to all eternity.

No seed is lost--in earth's brown bosom cast;
No deed is lost--of all the deeds we do;
Each grows to fruit--is harvested at last,
Haply in shape undreamed of, fair, and new.
And, though we die before the end be won,
Our deeds live on; and other men will cry,
Seeing the end of what we have begun,
"Still lives the fruit for which the flowers had to die!"