Classic Poem

I

Ordained to work the heavenly will,
Comes a bright angel, sent from far;
And Nature feels another thrill,
And Love has lit another star.

II

Earth was more beautiful because of him.
Wild flowers were born;
And limpid, bickering brooks,
The poet's earliest books,
Spoke of a new delight
Unto the morn;
And, in the fragrant night, —
When fairies, sporting underneath the moon,
In airy glee
And revelry,
Make the wide darkness beautifully bright,
Like brightest noonday in the heart of June, —
Every billow laughed, and after
Seemed to chase its nimble laughter;
Till spent,
With emulous merriment,
It sunk to sleep in some secluded, cool,
And black and lucent pool.

III

On meadows starred with daisies
The wild bee swooned, in mazes
Of witching odor, richer far
Than spikenard, rose, and jasmine are.
All natural objects seemed to catch a rare and precious gleam.
Unknowing why, the happy birds
Trilled out their hearts in seeming joyous words,
All indistinct, though sweet, to mortal ears;
Such as a poet hears,
With joy and yet with tears,
In some ethereal reverie, half vision and half dream.
Through breezy tree-tops jocund voices thrilled,
And, deep in slumberous caverns of the ocean,
Wild echo heard, and with an airy motion
Tossed back the greeting of a heart o'erfilled
With gladness, and that speaks it o'er and o'er,
Till bliss can say no more.
The waves that whispered on the listening sands
Told the glad tidings unto many lands,
And the stars heard, and from their wandering isles
Dropt down the blessing of their golden smiles.

IV

Touched by the lightning of the Maker's eyes
He spake in prophecies,
Interpreting the earth, the sea, the skies —
All that in Nature is of mystery,
And that in man is dark,
All that the perfect future is to be,
When quenched our mortal spark,
And souls imprisoned are at last set free:
Backward he gazed, across the eternal sea,
And on the ever-lessening shores of time
Saw ghosts of ruined empires wandering slow.
Then, onward looking, saw the radiant bow
Of promise shining o'er a heavenly clime;
And thus he knew of life its mystic truth, —
Hope, with perpetual youth,
And that wherein all doubt and trouble cease,
Sweet child of patience, peace.

V

And now came Death, a gentle, welcome guest,
And touched his hand and led him into rest.
Time paid its tribute to eternity —
A great soul, ripe for the immortal day —
And earth embraced his ashes. Cold their bed,
For now the aged year was also dead.
The winter wind shrieked loud, with hoarse alarms,
The keen stars shivered in the midnight air,
And the bare trees stretched forth their stiffened arms
To the wan sky, in pale and speechless prayer.

VI

Speak softly here, and softly tread,
For all the place is holy ground,
Where Nature's love enshrines her dead,
And earth with blessing folds them round.

He rests at last: the world far-off
May riot in her mad excess,
But now her plaudit and her scoff
To him alike are nothingness.

He learned in depths where virtue fell,
The heights to which the soul may rise:
He sounded the abyss of hell,
He scaled the walls of paradise.

What else? Till every wandering star
In heaven's blue vault be cold and dim,
Our faithful spirits, following far,
Walk in the light that falls from him.