Classic Poem

The Transcendentalist—he now transcends
The cloud of death to join exalted friends.
The Saadi of the West, the Saint, the Sage,
The north-sprung Plato of an un-Greek age,
Hath changed his habitation, and his ghost
Takes note authentic of the unknown coast.
Ah, joy serene! there doth he recognize
Congenial souls foreknown “polite and wise”:—
Two bards were first to hail his risen wraith,
One sang the Psalm of Life, one that of Death;
Then mystic Hawthorne took his willing hand,
As Vergil Dante's in the Shadow Land;
Now haply doth his converse reconcile
Momentous discords with redeemed Carlyle;
Perhaps in Soul's consortable domain
He meets the shade of erudite Montaigne;
Or German-Grecian Goethe shows the way
To Fields Elysian where the Ancients stray;—
By some celestial brook of lucent flow,
Where plane-trees with immortal verdure grow,
May sit, discoursing calm philosophies,
The Concord Seer, with argute Socrates.