Classic Poem

When the stars cease to speak to thee; when all
The silent messages which softly fall
From liquid skies, over dark groves, have said
Their final word; when ministries are dead,
When winds are voiceless and, from distance brought,
Sea-sounds give up no more the forms of thought;
Then faded Nature, once in life so glad,
Wears sadder mien than ever mourner had;
And if one utterance in the world is yet,
'Tis but the burden of a vain regret.

When with a melancholy, helpless trend,
All settles slowly into silent end,
Then the soul also, fickle and deranged,
Too weak for action and from peace estranged,
If offer'd straightway an immortal cup
Might lack the power of hand to lift it up;
Then hearts no longer struggle to get breath,
But through deep lethargy subside towards death;
And underneath the swooning moon or sun
There comes no help from any, no not one;
While of all things that are of least avail,
Love, which we lean'd on, seems the first to fail.
Yet, signs and sacraments of death, bereft
Of death's bleak graces, is there nothing left?

O inexpressible! O deeps forlorn!
O wild clouds, collocated eve and morn!
O eyes, imparting through their glooms a sense
Of vast abysses of impenitence,
With gulfs behind of sorrow unreveal'd
And bitter springs of loss in gulfs unseal'd!
Say, is there nothing? Do ye hold at length
Far off suggestions of some fount of strength—
Far as the stars of peace o'er stars of strife,
And far as life is from the life of life?

Wrecks on the tide-ways, wrecks upon the sea;
Black frozen heights, wherein no breath can be;
Hearts that have broken, hearts in ardent heat
To ashes burnt—vain ways and vain conceit—
Yet, through immeasurable loss and need,
Come hints of One still strong to intercede,
And to the prostrate soul in poison'd lands
Comes grip of the unseen, uplifting hands.