Classic Poem

Up on the hillside, far away,
There is a hidden spring
That never sees the light of day,
And where no bird doth sing.

It darkly wells, 'mid rocks and moss,
Lost in the thicket deep;
Above it, trailing creepers toss,
And dripping dew-drops weep.

But, down below, its waters run
To feed the roots of flowers;
Where bright birds glitter in the sun,
And sing through happy hours.

It makes a brook where children play;
It clothes the fields in grasses;
Its path is beauty all the way,
As down the vale it passes.

The mill-wheels hum along its side;
It builds the busy town;
And deeply, in its glassy tide,
The sweet stars look adown.

How many noblest deeds of men
Flow from the hidden springs,
Shut all away from human ken,
And kept as sacred things,—

The grief-fed springs within the heart,
All clouded o'er with doubt,
Where death our treasures smote apart,
And healing tears gushed out!

The graves of loved ones far away,
Up the dim track of years,
Still nerve the purpose of to-day
To rise above our fears.

Oh! many a tender word is said,
And gentle deed is wrought,
In memory of the cherished dead
That live still in our thought.

The orphans, that the mother love
Of childless mothers saves,
May thank the grief that bends above
The newly sodded graves.

And many a man, whose noble fight
For truth has lifted men,
Knows some dead loved one's deathless might
His motive power has been.

O tear-fed, hidden springs that well
Up from the heart's great deep,
The world its debt can never tell
To those that work and weep,—

That work out in the open day,
That weep when none are nigh,
And only by sweet deeds betray
The heart's sad mystery.