Classic Poem

It is my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes--
So was it sung one golden hour
Among the woodbine wreaths;
And yet, though wet with living dew,
The song seemed far more sweet than true.

Blind creatures of the sun and air
I dreamed it but a dream
That, like Narcissus, would confer
With self in every stream,
And to the leaves and boughs impart
The tremors of a human heart.

To-day a golden pinion stirred
The world's Bethesda pool,
And I believed the song I heard
Nor put my heart to school;
And through the rainbows of the dream
I saw the gates of Eden gleam.

The rain had ceased. The great hills rolled
In silence to the deep:
The gorse in waves of green and gold
Perfumed their lonely sleep;
And, at my feet, one elfin flower
Drooped, blind with glories of the shower.

I stooped--a giant from the sky--
Above its piteous shield,
And, suddenly, the dream went by,
And there--was heaven revealed!
I stooped to pluck it; but my hand
Paused, mid-way, o'er its fairyland.

Not of mine own was that strange voice,
"Pluck--tear a star from heaven!"
Mine only was the awful choice
To scoff and be forgiven
Or hear the very grass I trod
Whispering the gentle thoughts of God.

I know not if the hill-flower's place
Beneath that mighty sky,
Its lonely and aspiring grace,
Its beauty born to die,
Touched me, I know it seemed to be
Cherished by all Eternity.

Man, doomed to crush at every stride
A hundred lives like this
Which by their weakness were allied,
If by naught else, to his,
Can only for a flash discern
What passion through the whole doth yearn.

Not into words can I distil
The pity or the pain
Which hallowing all that lonely hill
Cried out "Refrain, refrain,"
Then breathed from earth and sky and sea,
"Herein you did it unto Me."

Somewhile that hill was heaven's own breast,
The flower its joy and grief,
Hugged close and fostered and caressed
In every brief bright leaf:
And, ere I went thro' sun and dew,
I leant and gently touched it, too.