Classic Poem

Great night! no soothing friend to pain thou art,
Whereto a stricken soul may pour its grief.
To thee these human sorrows be too brief
To wake the pulse of thine eternal heart.
Thy powers are dead; and sterner peace impart
The silences of thy vast eloquence.
Our reason fails; our minds succumb, too tense
To act; ourselves grow fragile, part by part.
So when thy pale infinitudes unfold
Their vastness, and th' eternal harmonies,
Threading their labyrinthine paths of gold,
Break on the vision with a sudden sting,
The soul is loosed, and in the boundless skies
A dazzling light uprises on her wing.