Classic Poem

Hung high against the perfect blue,
Like flame the belfry trembled higher,
Like leafage let the bird-flights through,
Like incense wreathed its melting spire.

From the dim vantage, lilac-hung,
Niched in the Roman rampart's strength,
We watched the foaming clouds that swung
Against the church's island-length,

The sheet of emerald foliage spread
Like some deep inlet's inmost reach,
Between the cliff-like towers o'erhead,
The low slate roofs that formed their beach —

We watched, & felt the tides of time
Coil round our hidden leafy place,
Sweep on through changing race & clime,
And leave us at the heart of space,

In some divine transcendent hush
Where light & darkness melt & cease,
Staying the awful cosmic rush
To give two hearts an hour of peace.

So deep the peace, so ours the hour,
When night-fall & the fiery train
Had swept us from our high-built bower,
And out across the dreaming plain,

Stillness yet brooded in our souls,
And even our rushing chariot stayed,
Loitering through aisles of silvery boles
In some remote & star-laced glade,

Where, through the pale & secret night,
Past gleams of water, depths of shade,
Under a low moon's golden light
We felt the quiet fields outspread —

And there, in the dim air afloat,
While silence held the throbbing train,
Some thrush, from immemorial throat,
Poured all the sweetness, all the pain.