Classic Poem

Pine trees sobbing a weird unrest
In saddened strains;
Crows flying slowly into the west
As daylight wanes;
Breezes that die in a stifled breath,
Leaving a calm that is still as death.

Fir trees reaching toward the sky
In giant might;
All day long at your feet I lie
Awaiting night,
While sweet pine needles are falling down
In silent showers of golden brown.

How waves the blue Canadian air
Amid your arms?
'Tis not so calm down here as there,
Because your charms
Enhance the world to a sapphire blue,
And change its tone with its change of hue.

Changed in a thousand trivial ways—
That shade a life,
Leaving the dregs of yesterdays
With shadows rife:
Shadows that lie in the fir tops tall,
And fall with the fir cones over all.

For some one's turned their tender eyes
Away from me,
And dark the sorrow that in them lies
With misery;
Oh, gentlest pleader my life has known,
I stay as you found me, here—alone.

Alone with the firs and the dying day,
That lived too long;
Alone with the pines that sing alway
Their strange, wild song.
Ah, darling! unclasp your fair, warm hand,
'Tis better I should misunderstand.