Classic Poem

( AS UNCONNECTED )

BRONTÉS .

Brother ! are you waiting
 Faithfully for me?
Stand fast and at last
 I'll reach my hair to thee.
Though of vacant sight,
 Blindly we are feeling
Tow'rd each-other, till the light,
 Through our sockets stealing
O'er the stream, in one beam
 Shall meet, and see!

ARGÉS .

Brother! I am listening
 To the words you say,
As they reach me, whistling
 Across the windy bay.
Though my feet are cold,
 And they long divide us,
Here I'll hold till I am old;
 Our echoes shall provide us
On bounding feet a pathway fleet,
 Till we behold!

BRONTÉS .

Like two gates, asunder
 Something swings between.
On our heads the thunder
 Strikes. We stand serene!
Earliest on our brows,
 Still the latest tarry
The rosy clouds; the birds in crowds
 Sail round to see us marry.
We will win, though, my twin,
 Waves intervene!

ARGÉS .

Hark, behind! the churches
 Faintly lift their bells.
And far below come and go
 The city's hollow swells;
Frightened ferry fleets
 Disappear in vapor,
And the camps of twinkling lamps
 Struggle for a taper.
To them all, starry tall,
 We are sentinels!

BRONTÉS .

Aye! I cannot see them,
 Yet I feel them there:
And clambering stars their silver bars
 Wind o'er me like a stair.
Brother, does a pulse
 Start not in thy shoulder,
For a mystic destiny,—
 Something better, bolder—
When the rainbow its skein
 Twineth in air?

ARGÉS .

Yes! A host of spirits
 In procession creep
O'er me silently,
 From darkened deeps of sleep.
Far away I hear
 Wheels imperious driven
Up the heights of the atmosphere,
 By the image of Heaven!
His path we span, and, brother! Man
Is the charioteer!