Classic Poem

How strange that thy enrapturing warmth should come
From the chill cloister of the prayerful monk,
To cheer the desolate heart in misery sunk,
And warm the lips that sorrow has made dumb!

Thou bring'st the merry twitter of birds that hum,
The soul's sweet exodus of song, when shrunk,
Expands again, when, all thy sweetness drunk,
Illumes the blood grown impotent and dumb.

And when I see thee, I most fondly dream
Thou must have been the genius and the slave
That led Aladdin in the legend old
Down thro' dim passages to goals extreme,
And in the arcana of a hidden cave
Have shown him marvelous treasuries of gold!