Classic Poem

“I know the orchards are in bloom,” she said,
“That in the meadows all the grass is deep,
That dimpling streams far oceanward are led,
Though through the pleasant fields they seem to creep,
Among the blue flags and the stately rushes,
While in the alders loudly sing the thrushes.

“I know the daisies drift like winter snow,
And ragged lilac boughs inherit wealth;
That golden tassels on the barberry grow,
And violets quicken in the sod by stealth;
I know that white and purple clovers wave
As sweet a flower, though grown upon a grave.

“And yet I have no heart to rise and look,
However much the sun illuminates
This fairest page of Nature's ample book,
From which the same sweet meaning radiates
As when before the meadows were a-blush,
And grove and hedge re-echoed to the thrush.

“What pleasure can I take in the old lore
When eyes that read with me are closed and blind,
And mark no more changes on wood or shore,
Nor care, perchance, for sweet things left behind—
What time the apple boughs are wreathed and bent
With the fair dower of spring grown opulent!”

In dusky alleys where the rose, the rose is overblown
Whose perfume makes the dewy air its own,
Where, large and white, from dazzling height o'er height
The stars lean down into the silent night,
Like some sad flower that blooms and drops unknown
I wait, unto sweet Love indifferent grown.

If Love had met me when the rose, the rose, was young,
And stars in morning skies divinely sung,
If Love had met me loitering by the strand,
Or lent across the slippery ford a hand,
Or cried, “Sweetheart, one precious moment stay!”
Should I have had the will to say him nay?

But since the rose, the rose, drops tarnished, overblown,
And every leaf the autumn winds dethrone,
Since Love forgets the way unto my door,
I watch and wait his coming nevermore,—
No beggar lives so hunger-hurt, alone,
As I to whom Love once denied my own.