Classic Poem

Who is that wight, who wanders there
So often o'er those lonely fields, —
Can solitude his thought repair,
Or filch the honey that he yields?

I see him often by the brook,
He pauses on some little rock,
Or, sheltered in a sunny nook,
He sits, nor feels the sharp wind's shock.

I meet him in the lonely lane,
Where merrily I drive my team,
And seek his downcast eye in vain,
To break the silence of his dream.

And sometimes when I fell the trees,
He muses with a saddened eye,
While leaps the forest like the Seas,
When tide and wind are running high.

Yet never questions he a word,
Of what I do or where I go,
His gentle voice I never heard,
His voice so soft and sweetly low.

And once at Sunset, on the hill
He stood and gazed at scenes afar,
While fell the twilight o'er the rill,
And glittered in the west, — a star.

I cannot see his years improve,
He leaves no tokens on the way,
'Tis simply breathing, or to move
Like some dim spectre through the day.

And yet I love him, for his form
Seems graceful as a Maiden's sigh,
And something beautiful and warm
Is shadowed in his quiet eye.

Thus spoke the driver of the wain, —
While solemnly he passed along,
This man unknown to fame or gain,
The hero of no Poet's song.

And there he wanders yet, I trust,
A figure pensive as the scene,
Created from the common dust,
Yet treading o'er the grasses green.