Classic Poem

The sweetest time of the year to me
Comes in the month of May,
The sky has then its brightest blue,
And earth its mildest day.

Not then is felt cold winter's chill,
Nor felt its summer's heat,
But all the earth is blithe and gay
And all the month is sweet.

When May is come, sweet, placid May,
The hills and vales are seen
With lofty peaks and mountain sides
To smile in living green.

The meadow streams, the rippling streams,
Through all the glad day long
Glide by their mossy banks and join
The earth in one sweet song.

'Tis then I love to wander forth,
Into some quiet vale,
And dream through all the livelong day,
And watch the cloudlets sail.

'Tis then those dreamy days gone by
When I was but a child,
Return and bring to me again
Old visions sweet and wild.

Those days when I would lie and watch
Beneath some shady tree,
The clouds float lazily along
In human forms to me.

Sometimes those forms a Bible name
Which I had heard or seen,
My childish fancy gave to each
One suited to his mien.

For sure I thought those holy men—
Those patriarchs of old
Were sailing round the skies in clouds,
For such to me was told.

But in those visions of them all
The sweetest one is this,
I hear again a voice, a call,
A call to hear is bliss.

A mother calls her careless boy,
One loth to leave his fun
To answer for some wickedness
Or on some errand run.

O! smiling May, how dear thou art,
Thou bringest back to me
A dreamy time, a time which now
In dreams can only be.

'Tis true ten thousand common joys
My restless soul make glad,
But all my joys unless in dreams
Are mingled with the sad.

So, May, when thou art come to me
I can but steal away
And live again in childhood dreams
At least for one brief day.

And O! that thou couldst stay with me,
Throughout the lagging year,
And let me work and love and dream
Out my existence here.