Classic Poem

Panting for that great calm that hangs o'er heaven
Profound and vast as God, here am I thrown,
Felled with th' rebounding stroke by sorrow given,
With all my gladness shrunken to a moan.
Erewhile my spirit like a well-tuned lyre
Sent forth delicious strains, beneath the hands
Of winged embodied thoughts, all love and fire,
In essence and in motion, spirit bands
That nursed the native joyfulness of life;
But in the midst of my life's happy strain
Came an erratic spirit full of strife,
And laid his hand, all paralysed with pain,
On the sweet strings tremulous with my joy,
To fill the gentle hours with annoy.