Classic Poem

Lonely and lovely, grave and good,
With the innocent-hearted hardihood....
Of a maid that walks in a pensive mood
My Queen comes up through the weird witch-wood.

Her presence enlightens the leafy gloom
Of the forest aisles where the shadows loom,
Where the fairest sight is a wildflower's bloom,
Or the lustrous flash of a peacock plume.

Over her, spreading, the green boughs meet,
Under her tread lies a fairy street,
Round her butterflies flaunt and fleet,
Flowers are blowing and herbs grow sweet,

She passes near, but the joy that's bred
In my heart as she comes is a word unsaid,
And all the pleadings mine eyes have pled
Are sealed on my lips with a lover's dread.

I fear to be graceless and overbold
To my Queen meek-hearted,—my Queen high-souled;
And why need she know what my thoughts may hold,
If I love her and crown her with living gold?

Her hair-with a sorcerer's wealth endowed,
Has the golden gleam of an evening cloud;
And her glorious eyes that are royal-browed,
Are sunny as morning and pure and proud.

Her brow is peaceful and chaste and fair;
One waits on her words as half-aware
They playfully sweeten or soften like prayer,
And these are beauties a queen may wear.

She comes at morn and she comes at e'en,
And the day is a vision that falls between;
Its sun may shine or its wind blow keen
But the hours lie desert that miss my Queen.

Yet no one knows her, and no one knows
How well I have loved her, for none suppose
I was ever enamoured of more than a rose;
And nobody sees where a man's heart goes.