Classic Poem

The sunshine lies athwart yon emerald bosk,
Where blithesome runnels dance from out the dusk
Of greenery, spired like an eastern mosque,
And o'er the fields the winds steal, faint with musk.

The sun, midway upon his tireless march,
Eyes languidly the green earth's sleepy face,
But the fond sky, with arms in dreamy arch,
Stoops down to take her in its soft embrace.

Lo! lying yonder in an azure swoon,
Where earth and sky in misty outlines merge,
I see the narrow, curved, white summer moon,
Pale and uncertain, o'er yon western verge.

Dim is the circuit of the far-off hills,
From whose light crests the thin, blue forests fail
In distance, and beyond the sunlight fills
The white-winged clouds that o'er the heavens sail.

The yearning willow bends each leafy spray,
And softly dips it in the sliding wave;
And on yon pebbly marge, across the way,
Two little wrens their soft, brown pinions lave.

A slumberous silence steeps the summer noon,
Save the cicada's piping, shrill and long,
And now and then a hautboy's drowsy tune,
In fitful snatches of an old love song.

O day of dreams, thou art not wholly lost;
When winter winds shall wax through sleety rain,
And all the flowers lie dead beneath the frost,
In memory I shall live thee o'er again.