Classic Poem

Those who have looked upon the dead have seen
A faint prophetic glory in the face,
As if a light were breaking, warm, serene,
Upon their vision in some unknown place.

So now upon the ashen clouds there came
A delicate suffusion, deepening slow,
Till through a silver rift a tender flame
Poured a pale radiance on the crusted snow.

And far o'er many a bleak and haggard mile
Of drifted glen and desolate white plain,
The splendor hovered, like a tranquil smile
On wan lips rigid with their last cold pain.

It was a revelation: the keen air
Seemed misted with a rain of luminous gold,
And in the hazel copse and hedge-rows bare
I looked to see the first green buds unfold.

And suddenly the mute midwinter gloom
Seemed musical with insect-murmuring,
And phantom odors of the cherry-bloom
Woke in my heart the ecstasy of spring.

The glory passed; again on field and hill
Relentless winter frowned in darkest mood,
And through the ice-bound valleys, rising shrill,
The wind wrung bitter moanings from the wood.

But I had caught the gracious prophecy
Of April hasting from her southern bowers,
And felt beneath the melancholy sky
The tender benediction of the flowers.