Classic Poem

The vistaed concaves of infinity
Star-vast, and archipelagoed with suns,
And gulfed with stellar space—the luminous banks
Of the gigantic, straggling Milky Way,
The moon that takes the huge world at one glance,
Give me a winging sense of stars and space,—
Dim-bodied shapes of unimagined Dream
Beat round me with a multitude of wings;
Eternity's presence overshadows me,
And I reach out toward everlastingness. . . .

But now the moon's a ghost in silver mail,
As, blowing through a storm of stars, the earth
Dips downward into dawn, deluged with light—
Sunlight which is the golden laugh of God!

The naked trees,—gaunt, sullen limbs a-creak—
That shivered half alive in the rushing air
Of Winter, dream of greenness and are glad;
The marching armies of the snow have gone;
White blossoms soon will rain from windy boughs;
All Nature's little gentle things will wake,
And earth will grow a Wonder to the sky!