Classic Poem

How sharp those beams are in the tree! — how fresh,
And how unblunted! as when first they sang
Through sable air, and into orbed gold
Struck the new planets None of the rust of time
Is there; nor of the mists of all the wets
Of air and ocean: but how straight they come!
What arrows of thin diamond, needle-sharp!
What visible immortality, warm from heaven,
Untired through space, new-born throughout all time,
And though as fierce as Will, as soft as Love!
How can they come so far, and come so strong,
And yet alight with such a loving ease?
Manifest love are they, and early at work,
Unscornful, universal, beautiful;
And now, this moment, while I write, are flooding
The ocean floods with light, in which the whales
Lift warm their island-backs, and cherishing
My buds here in the window, soft as thought:

Not with so little wisdom as some think,
Nor with religion so unworthy a better,
Did old imagination, in these beams
Of heav'n, shape forth a god, lustrous in groves,
Who to his golden-chorded lute attuned
All graceful aspiration, and had shafts
Of fiercer light, by which corruption died; —
Beauteous Apollo! Fair as his own fanes
In forests dark, the deathless elegance.

Yes, still there is Apollo. Still he haunts
The groves that have survived his other groves,
In poets' books; and painting lost him not;
How could it? Being of colour and the sun,
Visible poetry; and he has shrines
And marble incarnations in hushed rooms,
Where, as he stands, he seems as though he need
Never move more, reposing on his truth,
And the air loves him. Poets never dreamt
That he was dead, though in the common creed
Not seen. Lo! Dante, at heav'n's very door
Invokes the Pagan angel; Spenser, naming him,
Is grave as Homer was; and Milton's self,
Stern from the Sinai thunders, and disposed
To think him evil, could not, but rebuked,
Only to let him hear his tones of love,
And find, for him and his, strange corners sweet
Of flowery blame against a kindlier creed,
(Dear Christianity! Most Christian creed!)
When all that has been, shall be found of piece
With all that is, and beauty and kindness one.