Classic Poem

Here is the watershed of all the year,
Where, by a thought's space, thoughts do start anear
That fare most widely forth: some to the mouth
Of Arctic rivers, some to the mellow South.

The gaunt and wrinkled orchard shivers 'neath
The blast, like Lear upon the English heath,
And mossy boughs blow wild that, undistressed,
Another spring shall hide the cheerful nest.

All things are nearer from this chilly crown, —
The solitude, the white and huddling town;
And next the russet fields, of harvest shorn,
Shines the new wheat that freshens all the morn.

From out the bursting milkweed, dry and gray,
The silken argosies are launched away,
To mount the gust, or drift from hill to hill
And plant new colonies by road and rill.

Ah, wife of mine, whose clinging hand I hold,
Shrink you before the New, or at the Old?
And those far eyes that hold the silence fast —
Look they upon the Future, or the Past?