Classic Poem

The silent-footed midnight, sad and slow,
Moved eastward, muffled in her dusky robe,
Like some proud queen, exiled and full of woe,
And weeping round the globe.

I heard the murmurs of the tumbling streams,
Far off and low, that droned a dreamy tune;
I wandered down the purple vale of dreams,
Beneath the summer moon.

And softly to my open casement came
Sweeps of weird music, wafted from the sea;
Enticing voices seemed to call my name.
And winds to talk to me.

O mortal toiler come! they seemed to say,
Lament no longer for thy sad estate;
Arise and trim thy sail, and come away,
And triumph over fate.

Gay dwellers in the Happy Isles are we,
Who know not any care the livelong day;
Fair lies our home beyond the summer sea;
Sad mortal come away,

To loll all day beneath the orange trees,
Beside the noise of crystal-spouting springs,
In spicy climes, with no remembrances
Of melancholy things.

Or else along white fields of murmuring foam
To chase the breaking ripples as they run;
Away! away! a thousand miles from home,
And back before the sun.

Sinks to his evening bath in western floods;
Or else in great sea-shells to float asleep,
Rocked by sweet gales that blow from Indian woods,
Along the charmed deep!

These songs and more they sang, that fainter grew,
And died upon the dark, and wholly ceased,
As Morning with her sandals wet with dew,
Came blushing up the east.

I rose; my nets lay broken by the brine,
As sunrise burst o'er lawns and pastures fair;
I heard the bleat of flocks, the low of kine,
And soaring larks in air.

And all seemed joyous as the day arose,
While I alone was downcast and opprest;
Heart-heavy with a weight of fancied woes,
And worried with unrest.

But in my heart I heard another voice,
Low toned and full of peace, that seemed to say,
Behold the creatures of the field rejoice,
And art thou less than they?

Know all conditions tend to perfect ends:
Perform thy lot: to Heaven leave the rest.
All things work out the good which God intends;
The means, he knoweth best.