Classic Poem

See how the wind is veering,
bearing away the rain!
Within the dense grown oak tree
it twirls the leaves again,
that cut loose, and at last.

they go, a flocking legion,
at each enfolding blast.
The oak tree seems to dream now
of groups of leaves held fast
in November days past.

Dead in the limpid clearness,
like birds they wing their way;
they brush the little branches
of rosy peach trees gay
with their fruit-buds for May.

The rosy peach trees quiver
laden with lifeless leaves;
some of them cling and dangle,
and some desert the trees
with a swish, and away. . . .

And yet those leaves, though lifeless,
swept by the wind like chaff.
speak not at all of dying,
but whisper, with a laugh,
to the fruit-buds: Take heart!

Inside every shell at the entrance
little yellow claws I spy:
you, whom it hurts there longer
within the shell to lie,
why hold back still, apart?

Then open wide your winglets,
you, so alive in there!
'Tis true, the wind is growling
but it's no evil blare.
He finds fault, as he may,

and scolds, because the blossoms
of spring, as he has said,
must find this withered orchard
all clean: the old, the dead,
must be all swept away.

We have delayed a little
right here, where we were born,
but merely well to shelter
the new-born buds forlorn.
Thus the leaves, and they soar.

off, at a sudden wind-gust
more strident and more strong.
Half flying and half diving
the dead leaves float along,
nor come back any more.