Classic Poem

Stubble the ploughshare narrowed
Lies as bare earth, seeded and harrowed,
Loose clods and upturned stones
And flints scattered like pigmies' bones.

Crisp leaves across it roll;
A sun-greened jacket on a pole
Guarding the seeds from harm
Salutes the wind with broken arm.

Black eyes in elder bushes
Are half picked out by thieving thrushes;
No green save ivy lingers
That crawls and climbs with small webbed fingers.

Why do I grieve at fears
And make these falling leaves my tears?
These trees do but undress
To wrestlers clad in nakedness.

Half of the wood is blue
Where in wide rents the sky falls through;
A second Adam, I
Walk in the compass of its eye.