Classic Poem

Weep on, my trees. I hear the slow drops pat
On dun leaves heaped, I see the slow drops gather.
Time was these meadow-floors were all a lather
Of blossom, like the bubbled vintage vat;

And field and hedgerow pricked a million ears,
Twinkled a million eyes of laughter, made
The morn a song, the night a serenade —
Weep on, my trees: the world is all for tears.

The Earth was mailed in jewels, every gem
Globed with the hot fulfilling pride of life;
The Heaven came down and took the World to wife —
Dear days! weep on, my trees, for me and them.

The trees I knew, shock-headed, sleek of stem,
Sunshot pavilions, courts of rumourous bees;
The bully sons of generous Earth, the trees,
Stoop for their lives and moult their diadem.

It is not night, and yet the day is gone.
The lank fog beaded round the skeleton spray
Tolls little drops upon the leaf's decay.
And Winter's yet to come! My trees, weep on.