Classic Poem

How long will you remain? The midnight hour
Has tolled the last note from the minster tower.
Come, come: the fire is dead, the lamp burns low,
Your eyelids droop, a weight is on your brow.
Your cold hands hardly hold the useless pen;
Come: morn will give recovered strength again.

“No: let me linger; leave me, let me be
A little longer in this reverie.
I'm happy now, and would you tear away
My blissful dream, that never comes with day;
A vision dear, though false, for well my mind
Knows what a bitter waking waits behind?”

“Can there be pleasure in this shadowy room,
With windows yawning on intenser gloom,
And such a dreary wind so bleakly sweeping
Round walls where only you are vigil keeping?
Besides, your face has not a sign of joy,
And more than tearful sorrow fills your eye.
Look on those woods, look on that heaven lorn,
And think how changed they'll be to-morrow morn:
The dome of heaven expanding bright and blue,
The leaves, the green grass, sprinkled thick with dew,
And wet mists rising on the river's breast,
And wild birds bursting from their songless nest,
And your own children's merry voices chasing
The fancies grief, not pleasure, has been tracing.”

“Aye, speak of these, but can you tell me why
Day breathes such beauty over earth and sky,
And waking sounds revive, restore again
The hearts that all night long have throbbed in pain?
Is it not that the sunshine and the wind
Lure from its self the mourner's woe-worn mind;
And all the joyous music breathing by,
And all the splendour of that cloudless sky,
Re-give him shadowy gleams of infancy,
And draw his tired gaze from futurity?