Classic Poem

I sing to the sunbeams that glance
And dance in their music of mirth;
I warble thanksgiving; I'm living
In praise of the beauty of earth,—
Of shadows in sunshine that glisten
On apple blossoms in May;
Of amethyst mountains that listen
Against their blue backgrounds of day;
Of fragrance of woods
And the hush of their whispering deeps,
Of the stream that flashes in light,
Then settles to stillness and sleeps
In the shadowy caverns of night.

Deem not this prison my home;
I roam where the crested wave
Sinks into the bowl of the billow,
The pillow of moonbeams. The Cave
Of the Winds I know,
And far to the summer seas I go.
On viewless wings of memory gliding,
I sail, a glad new comer,
Where shy young flowers
In dark leaves hiding,
Blush deeply, in love with the summer.
I drift o'er the sea to its musical shores;
I mingle with zephyrs that fan the Azores.

The sunlight up yonder
With pencils of wonder
Is painting the forest—
Its beauty is mine;
I claim all the grace
Of the palm and the pine.
In the orchard I sing,
In the heavens I soar,
The sky is my ceiling,
The meadow my floor.
You toil and you drudge
And grumble all day;
I'd scorn to exist
In your pitiful way:
A slave to suspicion,
To cares and to me,
While mine is the joy of the world—