Classic Poem

Ye come to me with eyes of light,
Fair creatures of my dreams!
Ye move around me, calm and bright,
Like sunset over streams,
When the last flush of dying day
In liquid lustre glows,
Then passes into night away,
Like rain-drops from a rose.

Fair creatures! soft your voices are:
I hear their tender tone,
And all the twilight echoes bear
Their melody alone.
It fills the rocks, the woods, the plain,
With an all-pervading thrill;
And, listening to the invisible strain,
The breathless air is still.

All innocent your beauty blows,—
'T is bright and purely fair:
The rose, the young and virgin rose,
Buds forth in sweetness there;
And there are light and laughing eyes,
That never have wept in pain,—
Hope beckons you on, as away she flies,
And love, that must all be vain.

O, stay, fair creatures,—I bid you stay!
With you my dreams are heaven.
Too soon the vision must fade away;
Not for ever those joys were given.
Bend over me now that winning smile,
That lingering look of light!
Ye fade:—O, pause and charm awhile,
Ere ye vanish away in night!