Classic Poem

To see the high tower, so stately and tall,
Above all the houses, looking so small,
How fell back our head with uplooking sight
To reach up its height of smooth-sided wall,
As there we beheld his pinnacles stand
As sound as they first were put out of hand.

With battlements back'd by clear-shining sky,
And windows a higher over a high,
In winds that flung out the bells' chiming sound,
The daws flew around with high-screaming cry,
Up over the yew that cast down a gloom
On weak-bladed grass beside the grey tomb.

In summer, when day with sweltering glare
Had melted away in dim-blowing air,
And men, when at last the night-bell had pealed,
Had come from the field in weather yet fair,
How peaceful within my window beside
The lawn was my hour of still eventide.

And then, if the moon might scatter her light
On monument stones unheeded at night,
No stone idly show'd while people all slept
A name I had wept by chisel to write;
But lives given me were still coming on,
All hopeful and gay, with none of them gone.

While clock-strokes may ring from fewer to more,
As climbs up the sun above the warm door,
And then give again new hours after one
Till evening's low sun shines low as a floor,
Oh! sweet be the day and peaceful the hour
Of evening to souls below the tall tow'r.