Classic Poem

To Eden fast gated,
Heart-broken, belated,
Corin came weeping; ashamed was he.
On turret and border,
Attentive to order,
Stood watcher and warder, a wonder to see!

Quoth he, " O ye Powers
Who stand in high towers,
And bring to yon bowers the captive set free,
Let your bright sentry
Oppose not my entry,
For Phillada yonder sits weeping for me. "

Questioned a hearer:
" From Eden what bearer
Of fables has told ye a wonder so wise?
What sorrow of mortals
Can enter these portals,
Or come to draw tears out of Phillada's eyes? "

" Nay, if ye show not, "
Quoth Corin, " I know not
The way; yet the truth of it surely I know!
I that did treason
To love without reason,
Did yet for a season find pleasure below:

Found it, and lost it: —
For ever there crossed it
A shadow from realms were no shadow should be.
Paradise painless
Around her lay stainless;
Yet Phillada yonder was weeping for me! "

Quoth Michael, " O Corin,
Unfriended and foreign,
Foul are thy feet; with what eyes canst thou see? "
" One thing I see plainly, "
Quoth Corin, " though vainly:
How Phillada mainly sits weeping for me!

Love stays not her weeping,
Love holds in his keeping
Those eyes which unsleeping have pitied my pains;
Unslain by the glory
Which dazzles before me,
The love which she bore me for ever remains. "

" Her weeping is painless, "
Quoth Michael, " and stainless
By grief is the fountain which brims in those eyes.
With laughter and singing
Her spirit up-springing
For ever goes winging its way to the skies. "

" Does life in this garden, "
Quoth Corin, " so harden
Your hearts that ye read not her heart which is free?
Since Eden prevents not,
Of love she repents not,
And gladly, not sadly sits weeping for me.

But since ye now spurn me,
To torment I'll turn me,
And devils shall teach me how love was a lie.
But the dear heart ye cherish
Will dwindle and perish.
And Phillada's fountain will all run dry! "

Then Michael down drifted,
And caught and uplifted
Corin the sinner from paths of pain:
Swift, ere he waited,
The portals ungated:
Like chiming of bells was the fall of their chain.

And lo, as they entered
Where Paradise centred,
A vision of light amid light made dim,
Lovely and painless,
By sorrow made stainless,
Yonder sat Phillada weeping for him!

This is the wonder:
In Heaven, and under,
Sinner and saint in their loves agree.
While sinner goes bleeding,
All Eden is pleading;
And Phillada there sits weeping for me!