Classic Poem

Type of celestial labour, toil divine,
That nightly downward from the glistening skies
Showerest thy light on these expectant eyes,
Around thee in their station ever shine
Full many a radiant shape and emblemed sign,
Swords, sceptres, crowns, bright tresses, galaxies—
Whatever song can raise, or thought devise,
Yet none, methinks, so truly great as thine.
On, ever on! while he who guides thee flings
His golden grain along the azure way,
Do thou thy sleepless work, and toiling, say,
“O men, so sedulous in trivial things,
Why faint amid your loftier labours? Why
Forget the starry seeds and harvests of the sky?”