Classic Poem

Ye mighty forests, deep and old,
With knotty stems and towering shade,
That where the lordly streams are roll'd
A dense and matted gloom have made,

Your arms are rife with germs of life,
Your heads receive the rushing wind;
With lingering sweeps the night-breeze creeps
O'er your thick robes and wrinkled rind;

Ye stand like shrouds before the clouds
That hold the sunset of mid-June—
And darker still when o'er the hill
Creeps the pale dawning of the moon.

O then the soft suffusion clear
Peers over your enormous screen,
The skies are white with silver light,
How grand the shade! how sweet the sheen!

And when the sun's first rosy line
Is drawn i' the east—thro' every glade
Aglow with golden dews ye shine
And orange-tints your depths pervade!