Classic Poem

Softly, softly through the air
Down the snow-flakes flutter,
Down, down,
Down upon the hill-sides bare
And brown.
Over field and over town
Spreads the mantle far and wide,
And upon the feathery tide
We, musing, gaze and think,
And fain would try, but shrink,
Dismayed, from the endeavor
To fix the thoughts that ever
Float with each falling flake
Down to our hearts, and wake
Emotions there which we can never utter.
O'er the dusky sky
Spread the curtains dun,
From our eyes that veil
The sun.
Not as in summer they
Swift over heaven's way
Fly;
Not as in noonday bright
Shimmer the streamers white,
High,
But with leaden hue and pale,
Like the countenance whose tale
Is of a sorrow-burdened heart that's breaking.
Like the craven's face,
Where terror hath its place,
Whose very coward soul with fear is quaking
And affright,
Lowers the noonday night,
And the whole canopy of heaven is making
One mass of pallid gloom,
Vague as the shadowy tomb,
Ghastly and blank
Where whelmed in fold on fold the fainting sunlight sank.

But beyond the murk
Of cloudland gray and chill,
Where lurk
In their caverns still
Darkness and sorrow waiting for their prey,
Lie the bright realms above of the day,
Where the grand solar rays
In a glorious blaze
Drive away,
Into myriad rainbows blending,
By their furious descending,
Every fog sprite dim that dares dispute their sway,
In their consuming love of conquering power;
While rings each hour
Through the azure empyrean
Loudly their exulting paean,
Though not to man 'tis given to comprehend their lay.