Classic Poem

The waning days now waft us on
From world-enlight'ning summer gone,
And shrill cold winds, above the shrouds
Of shaken trees, drive darksome clouds
O'er gloomy grass within the glades,
Where glowing lights and quiv'ring shades
Were lately lying, in the heat
Of longer days, beneath our feet.

The bending stream that bubbled by
Its bank among the stones half dry,
When in the heat of high-sunn'd noon
Our hay was rustling grey in June,
With yellow waves is rolling wide
And wild along the wet rock's side;
And bending trees now bow and twist
All beaten by the wind-borne mist,

And on below them lightly leap
Their leaves adown the leeward steep;
Where lately in a ring, around
The ridge, their boughs begloomed the ground,
And they in fading fell as light
As feathers from their airy height,
In bleak air softly blowing through
The black-thorn with its sloes of blue.

O blue-sky'd summer, now the bloom
Of blowing flowers, and the gloom
Of leaves but lately green, where grows
The grove of elms in goodly rows,
With thy soft air, and long days' light,
Are lost for winter's storms and night.
For never-tiring time but gives
To take away, and so man lives
With less to love till he, at last,
Is lost with all he held so fast.