Classic Poem

Sweet chimes! that in the loneliness of night
Salute the passing hour, and in the dark
And silent chambers of the house-hold mark
The movements of the myriad orbs of light!
Through my closed eyelids, by the inner sight,
I see the constellations in the are
Of their great circles moving on, and hark!
I almost hear them singing in their flight.
Better than sleep it is to lie awake,
O'er-canopied by the vast starry dome
Of the immeasurable sky; to feel
The slumbering world sink under us, and make
Hardly an eddy, — a mere rush of foam
On the great sea beneath a sinking keel.