Classic Poem

As through the winter's gates the joyous spring-tide passes,
Her bright brow wreathed with flowers and buds and clinging grasses,—
And then the summer shines,
With songs of many birds and sound of many rivers
And laughter of the leaves that rustles down and shivers
Through the concordant leafage of the pines:

As still there is a sense of agony just over
That even pales the rose and troubles the sweet clover
At times, and thrills the grove,
So, in our human lives, an agony of weeping,
Though summer's silent peace upon the hills be sleeping,
Becomes, not joy, but agony of love.