Classic Poem

Break, ties that bind me to this world of sense,
Break, now, and loose me on the upper air:—
Those skies are blue; and that far dome is fair
With prophecy of some divine, intense,
Undreamed-of rapture. Ah, from thence
I catch a music that my soul would snare
With its strange sweetness; and I seem aware
Of Life that waits to crown this life's suspense.

I see—I hear—yet to this world I cling—
This fatal world of passion and unrest—
Where loss and pain jeer at each human bliss,
As autumn mocks the fleetness of the spring,
And each morn sees its sunset in the west—
Break, ties that bind me to a world like this!