Classic Poem

Is poesy dwelling in a nice culled sound
Or soft smooth words that trifle on the ear
Unmeaning music—is it to be found
In rhymes run mad that paint to startled fear
Monsters that is not & that never where
Is it in declamations frothing high
Worked like maschinery to its mad career
—No poesy lives in its simplicity
& speaks from its own heart to which all hearts reply

Fames hopes with me are faint to look upon
The clouds of doubt with gloom her [sky] defiles
Though flattering pulse & burning thrills urge on
& hope at intervals the way beguiles
The flowers she plucks me wear precarious smiles
Yet do I follow with unwearied eyes
The shadowy reccompence for real toils
Ah would the heart cease aching & be wise
& think life vainly spent staked for a doubtful prize

Why wish to see what other lands supplies
Are they more lovlier then my own they may
But the unnumbered & unsevered ties
That binds the fond heart to its own—do they
Grow on a stranger soil—though summers day
Lives an eternal round—where is the rest
That home can bring us—when the evening grey
Bids us retire like fond bird to its nest
& drooping night spreads round & finds us blest

Pride if it reads may scorn a lowly lay
That stops like love sweet nature to admire
In scornful smiles may turn its eyes away
From the wild notes of an untutored lyre
That breaths no music save what seasons bring
Flowers birds & shady bowers & shall these tire
No if I touch aright the simple string
These all shall breath & live through many a coming spring

& here they dwell around my paths & here
They will dwell on as now when I am not
For many an after day & after year
When I am like one lost if not forgot
& times rude hand with heedless pen shall blot
My name for aye from this worlds mortal book
When death hath broke the seal of fates dread lot
Then these shall be—& other eyes shall look
As I do now with joy on tree & field & brook

Envys that scorned me in my first career
Hath seen the world approve—oblivions blot
Hath done away its taunt & idle sneer
& waits its being & its all to rot
When fate shall triumph ‘dye & be forgot’
Insects that tortured in hopes summer scene
These all shall pass away—not so my lot
Though fame deny the prize—twill linger green
When they have lived & died like plagues that neer had been