Classic Poem

The storm of the day is past;
The rain has a fainter sound,
Yet low-hung clouds their misty skirts
Trail over the sodden ground.

The heavy twilight falls;
The clouds trail more and more,
And the early darkness stealthily creeps
Up to the farmhouse door.

I sit, in the gathering night,
By the fire — it is burning low — .
And think, with a longing akin to pain,
Of the friends that I used to know.

And a thrilling vision sweeps
Through the chambers of my brain:
Gone are the mist, the darkening room,
And the prairies soaked with rain.

I see the friends I love.
(I shall love them evermore)
And I look in their eyes and clasp their hands,
Beneath a vine-wreathed door,

Yonder are the wood-crowned hills,
Flaming with gold and red;
I hear the brawl of a fretting brook,
Swollen high in its rocky bed.

The orchard, the willow hedge,
The pasture with cows, and the well,
The giant hickory near the gate,
On guard, like a sentinel.

I see all these, as I stand
In the autumn's sunset glow,
And talk and listen, with throbbing heart,
To the friends I used to know.

I start — and the vision fades,
The fire is dead, and the light
Is gone from the dripping and darkened panes:
I sit alone in the night.