Classic Poem

The sunset burns upon the river,
Its glories fade and die,
But up the paths of night come ever
The children of the sky.
So, when the light of olden days
Sinks from before men's eyes,
Fair visions, up the spirit's ways,
Like stars of Heaven, arise.

O vernal land! O river strand,
Beside whose waving reed,
Three hundred years ago, did stand
The cottage of the Swede!
Would that these lips, alas, so dumb,
Could sing your minstrelsy
As, from the distant past, doth come
Its music unto me!