Classic Poem

The pale blue sky gleams through the opening leaves,
The shadows play across the ground and air,
The yellow sunlight round leaf-rims retrieves
Its vanquished splendor where the foliage fair
Shuts out the grass from its fierce pulse and care.

I hear the silence from my window seat,
And feel the summer entering my veins,
And know with what strange joys the hour-hearts beat,
The fervorous hours that dance the fleeting plains
Where Love has birth and sweetest Joy remains.

I see across the way the maid I love,
Lissome and shy, a part of summer's might,
A life not fallen below, or risen above,
The bliss of nature's calm, and golden light,
A maid at flower-stage, flower-like fair and bright.

I know how nature has sheer joy for core,
How trees put on their leaves for pure desire
To be and live, how clouds dispart in more
And more for sweet love's sake, and the sun's fire
Engirds the world as sounds from some great lyre.

I know the secret of the rose, a flame
Upon its slender stem, the sun's fire burst
Into a visible thing our hearts can name,
A fire of love in its fierce father-flame immerst,
The word that love and nature live to frame.