Classic Poem

The breathing flowers, the forest-buds unfurl'd,
Are not the expanded seedlings that we ween,
But sweet transfigurations from the world
That lies within the seen.

For this the type in which God prints His thought—
This glorious theatre of shifting things:
And whosoever has its meaning caught,
For him all Nature sings.

Would'st thou hear Nature's voice? Be one with her,
In simple purity, perennial youth;
Her child in wonder, and her worshipper
In spirit and in truth.

Then will the daisy, from its modest eye,
Let out its secrets, and the starry scroll,
River and ocean—all of earth or sky—
Interpret to thy soul.