Classic Poem

In the spring I have leaned me full close to the bark of a tree,
To know if its heart were athrob with spring passion and glee,
And found that its longing was like to the longing in me.

In the spring I have bent to the odorous lips of a rose,
Await for the summer her virginal heart to unclose.
And found her full fain of the spring-tide that blossoms and blows.

In the spring I have harked to the bountiful song of a bird
Outbreathing his joyance as plainly as ever man heard,
Albeit his bliss be not caught in a crystalline word.

And so, when they tell me the bird-song, the rose, and the beat
In the turbulent heart of the tree are senseless though sweet
Revealments of Nature, spring-stirred by the spirit of heat,

I laugh in my heart as one laugheth who knoweth the best;
And never I trust to such testaments cold, but I rest
In the secrets the bird and the rose and the tree have confessed.