Classic Poem

Tradition's favoring verdict would express
In you all duteous thrift and toil extreme,
Against gray wintry dearth, while summers beam,
Hoarding with zeal your honeyed bounteousness.
And yet in drowsy reverie I confess
That booming now where flowery vistas gleam,
Among these jubilant garden-paths you seem
The murmurous incarnations of idlesse!

Nay, more, you are like those pages, clad of old
By pampering lords in velvet and in gold,
Who bore sweet amorous words, with cautious airs,
To delicate ladies in rich robes aglow,
Strolling down glades of shadowy Fontainebleau,
Or loitering at Versailles on marble stairs!