Classic Poem

How tender and how slow, in sunset cheer,
Far on the hill, our quiet treetops fade!
A broidery of ebon seaweed, laid
Long in a book, could scarce more fine appear.
Frost and sad light and windless atmosphere
Have breathed on them, and of their frailties made
Beauty more sweet than summer's builded shade,
Whose green domes fallen, leave this wonder clear.

O ye forgetting and outliving boughs,
With not a plume, gay in the joust before,
Left for the Archer! so, in evening's eye,
So stilled, so lifted, let your lover die,
Set in the upper calm no storms arouse,
Stript, meek, withdrawn against the heavenly door.