Classic Poem

Fields far below us, — silence in the wood, —
Gold slanting rays down through green branches shed, —
You, clear against the hazy golden flood, —
And in your voice the summer as you said;
" I loved you once because a dream had come
Of what you might be, — and that was not you.
And once I hated, since my heart was numb
With pain to know my perfect hope untrue.
And once to make you other than you were
I would have mounted Calvary on bent knees.
But now, — dear lover whom such tempests stir, —
I am forever done with all of these.
My love is yours: — be tender, fierce, or strange, —
You still are you, unchanged through every change. "