Classic Poem

That which shall last for aye can have no birth.
Thou art immortal! therefore thou hast been
A voyage to which the journey of the earth
Is but the shifting of some tawdry scene.
Thou wert not absent when the camp began
Of the great captains of the middle air, —
Sirius and Vega and Aldebaran, —
Myriads, and but the marshals numbered there;
Ay, earlier yet in the God-purposed void,
The dream and desert of oblivion,
Thou livedst, — a thought of one to be employed
Ere yet Time's garments thou didst take and don:
Guest that no footprint on my threshold leaves, —
Speak, O dim traveller, speak: thy host believes!