Classic Poem

( " MADELINE BRIDGES " )

Faint , faint and clear,
Faint as the music that in dreams we hear
Shaking the curtain-fold of sleep,
That shuts away
The world's hoarse voice, the sights and sounds of day,
Her sorry joys, her phantoms false and fleet, —
So softly, softly stirs
The wind's low murmur in the rippled wheat.

From west to east
The warm breath blows, the slender heads droop low
As if in prayer;
Again, more lightly tossed in merry play,
They bend and bow and sway
With measured beat,
But never rest, — through shadow and through sun
Goes on the tender rustle of the wheat.

Dreams more than sleep
Fall on the listening heart and lull its care;
Dead years send back
Some treasured, unforgotten tune.
Ah, long ago,
When sun and sky were sweet,
In happy noon,
We stood breast-high, mid waves of ripened grain,
And heard the wind make music in the wheat.

Not for to-day —
Not for this hour alone — the melody
So soft and ceaseless thrills the dreamer's ear:
Of all that was and is, of all that yet shall be,
It holds a part.
Love, sorrow, longing, pain,
The restlessness that yearns,
The thirst that burns,
The bliss that like a fountain overflows,
The deep repose,
Good that we might have known, but shall not know,
The hope God took, the joy He made complete, —
Life's chords all answer from the windswept wheat!