Classic Poem

They look in with dim eyes
And faces sweet and sad,
Upon the life that dies —
Shades who have had
Their part in all things here,
The mortal hope and fear,
Till, as now from the bier
But one remove,
They hark the still hours chime
Within the Tower of Time
As to the sad, sweet rhyme
Of life and love.
They see more than we know,
They hear more than we may,
Who ever come and go
Like stars on a cloudy way:
And they grow sad to ken
The mortal life of men,
In the vesper light again
As they look in
And feel the phantom thrill
Of all the good and ill,
Of love and beauty still
And pain and sin.
And then with faces wan
They to each other turn,
Dreaming of what is gone,
E'en as they yearn
Perchance to lift the veil
With fingers thin and pale
Showing the no avail
Of so much here,
And how all things are cast
As in a dream at last,
When the future as the past
Shall disappear.