Classic Poem

How softly comes the summer wind
At evening o'er the hill,
Forever murmuring of thee
When busy crowds are still;
The way-side flowers seem to guess
And whisper of my happiness.

The jasmine twines her snowy stars
Into a fairer wreath;
The lily lifts her proud tiárs
More royally beneath;
The snow-drop with her fairy bells,
In silver time, the story tells.

Through all the dusk and dewy hours,
The banded stars above
Are singing, in their airy towers,
The melodies of love;
And clouds of shadowy silver fly
All night, like doves, athwart the sky.

Fair Dian lulls the throbbing stars
Into Elysian dreams;
And, rippling through my lattice bars,
Her brooding glory streams
Around me, like the golden shower
That rained through Danäe's guarded tower.

And when the waning moon doth glide
Into the valleys gray;
When, like the music of a dream,
The night-wind dies away;
When all the way-side flowers have furled
Their wings, with morning dews impearled,

A low, bewildering melody
Seems murmuring in my ear,—
Tones such as in the twilight wood
The aspen thrills to hear,
When Faunus slumbers on the hill,
And all the entrancèd boughs are still.