Classic Poem

High on the cliff the monastery gleamed;
Far off there lay the glimmer of the sea;
And on the rolling headland, musingly,
The cowherd, Cædmon, watched a cloud and dreamed;
A poet mute he was, whose lips still seemed
Untouched by fire divine,—but, suddenly,
Song surged within him to an ecstasy,
Flamed in his soul, and forth the numbers streamed.

Thou Saxon Bard! silent so many a day,
Who lauded Man and Nature in thy lay,
Rise from thy crypt, and in o'erwhelming wrath
Scathe our degenerate World—a world of graves,—
Whose human harvest shows one scarlet path,
While dreadful Death incarnadines the waves.