Classic Poem

The year is sullen, sullen is the day;
Nor is the heaviness for summer gone:
It issues from a garden wrapt in clay,
And shooting boughs of pale mezereon.
The wind heaves slow, and yet no dirge is rung;
There is no burthen from a distant shore;
A strain, a cry is there for things so long,
So very far away, so long before.
Nor is there any pain regret can bring
Of so sharp pang as virgin appetite
That can but brood upon its famishing,
Till unwarmed suns shall furnish its delight.
So long the winter dures, breath is so brief!
—If one should fail before the flower has leaf?