Classic Poem

From the gray woods they come, on silent feet
Into a cone of light.
A moment poised,
A lifting note,
O fair! O fleet!
Whence did you come in your amazing flight?
And whither now
Do you, reluctant, wistfully retreat?
Oh surely you have danced upon the hills
With the immortals.
As an arrow thrills
Through the blue air and sings,
You join with the proud wind, your fluent limbs
As tameless as his wings.
Within your hollowed hand you hold the draught
That wakes us from our lingering lethargy
To skyey joy
Like yours, luring and swift and free.
Yours is the birth in beauty that was sung
A golden age ago;
And now you come
With pipe and timbrel and the quickening drum,
Till men have hope of conquest over time
And death and tears.
Dreams know not any bars.
You leap like living music through the air
And love triumphant treads among the stars.