Classic Poem

One figure flitting through my dreamland ways
Holds out dear hands and beckons me to go,
And all the world is sweeter for a phrase
That dimly whispers when the lights are low.
Once, leaping through the silences of snow,
Far up the heights, the sky all turned to haze,
A little rill, escaping, rippled so:
Adventured thus, my dreamland figure strays.

Belated on the spray that afternoon
The red, unripened bramble-berries hung,
Touched with November sunshine, fading soon–
A smile, untimely bright, in mockery flung;
A blackbird, all his summer anthems sung,
Fled with a scream; about our feet lay strewn
The leafy havoc; and my heart was wrung
To know, too late for life, life's only boon.

They pass, these uninterpretable years,
A weird, oracular host, abrupt and stern,
Interminably ranked. Time domineers,
Despoiling us of all the joys we earn;
And yet, Soul-shiningly, the mist-banks burn
With glory on the hither side of tears.
The out-world phantoms nevermore return;
The world within enfolds the years and spheres.