Classic Poem

O thou, who dwelt in loftiness,
Ere man had learned to fall;
Ere penury drank, in bitterness,
Its wormwood and its gall;
Ere wealth had reared its golden piles
Where nations bow the knee,
But health, all radiant o'er with smiles,
Made man unbent and free;—

Thou Spirit! who pervad'st the wild
And desert wilderness,
But in thy wrath hast never smiled
Where crouching thousands press;
Who, through the danger and the dread,
The high-souled hero bore,
Unshook by fear, by glory led,
Through battle's deepest roar;—

O, thou wilt never come and dwell
Where men in cities throng;
Where heartless pimps, in triumph, swell,
To power, a pæan song:
Thou shun'st the base and crawling herd;
The desert is thy home;
And with the pinions of a bird,
Thou only there wilt roam.

O Spirit! take me then with thee,
Where winds of ocean blow;
Till life, replete with ecstasy,
To inspiration glow:
O, let me wander freely there,
Till death my being sever;
Then through the brightest fields of air,
A Spirit, float for ever.