Classic Poem

The earth lay shrouded white in snow;
With low, sad voice, the winds wailed by;
While, as in hopeless prayer, the trees
Their gaunt arms lifted to the sky.

Winter was king; and icy Death,
His favorite, stretched his sceptre forth,
And held all fair things, leaf and flower,
Prisoned in dungeons of the north.

All nature was in chains: the brooks
Crept ice-bound on their sluggish way;
The sun shone feebly, and the night
Soon blotted out the cheerless day.

Then from the south the glad spring came,
And breathed through all the chilly air,
And wheresoe'er her warm feet trod
Sprang life and beauty everywhere.

The earth flung off her shroud: the winds
Their wailing ceased, and stooped to tell
The grasses and the flowers 'twas time
For roots to start and buds to swell.

The trees' long prayer was answered now;
The heavens once again were kind;
And, thrilled through every bough, they flung
Their leafy banners to the wind.

The fields and meadows all put on
Their spangled dress of grass and flowers;
Brooks babbled, and ecstatic birds
Made shake with joy their leafy towers.

Such is young Nature's Easter Day!
But tell me, then, Has man no part
In life's long triumph over death?
Is there no Easter of the heart?

Our loved ones, shrouded white, have lain
Beneath the snow these many years:
The sad-voiced winds above them go,
And on their graves drip rainy tears.

Their shadowy memories visit us, —
For dreams at least can leave that shore, —
Mother's gray hairs and gentle eyes,
As light she steps across the floor;

Or comes the brother of our youth,
Making the far-off years draw nigh;
The wife, long lost, our fadeless dream,
The same old love-look in her eye;

The laughing child, whose sunny hair,
Was so entangled in our heart
It bleeds afresh when we recall
The hour that tore our lives apart.

'Tis winter in our lives! Snows fall,
Chill, dreary skies are overhead;
The fresh leaves of our youth are gone,
The flowers of our hope are dead.

Is there no Easter of the heart?
Will our lives bud again no more?
Will they no more return, — the birds
Whose music made us glad before?

Nay, listen! in my heart I hear
The whisper of another spring:
The winds blow warm from sunny lands,
Leaves burst and buds are blossoming.

I catch the fragrance of a clime
Where summer blooms the whole round year,
Where every sound melts into song
And comes as music to my ear.

The lost ones hidden by the snow,
With faces white and still and cold,
Beneath those soft skies wake again
To live and love us as of old.

Mother and brother, wife and child, —
They keep the same remembered faces;
Only tear-stains and lines of care
With deathless youth can find no places.

And, best of all, it looks like home,
No strange land trod by alien feet, —
Familiar as our childhood haunts,
Clothed all in mellow sunlight sweet.

The heart's long prayer is answered thus:
The dead through no far countries roam,
As babes born into waiting arms,
They die into some higher home.

And, 'neath the sunshine of this hope,
My life, where joy had ceased to sing,
Where dead flowers mocked the withered leaves,
Now buds and blossoms like the spring.