Classic Poem

Old tones
Of some glad tune, first heard long years ago,
When to their music life went gladly too,
If heard once more when life, after long years,
Goes not at all, but rests, in him that hears
Awaken thus the wild unwonted spasm
Of life's long-buried old enthusiasm.
Earth under earth, the earthly instinct, raised
By earthly praises in the corpse thus praised,
Return'd to life.
She rose I' the tomb, and said,
" Open! and let me forth. I am not dead.
For men yet praise me, and their praises give
My joy thereat assurance that I live. "
And the tomb answer'd, in its own dumb way,
" I neither know the living, nor obey
Their voice. "
The pious pilgrims above ground,
Their rites perform'd, departing now, — the sound
Of human praise about that tomb wax'd faint,
Then silent.
" Ay, " she mused, " a Saint? ... a Saint
Should seek, not men, but God. " She stood before
The creviced hinge of the tomb's granite door
And struck it with dead hands, and said again,
" Door of the Tomb, since I have done with men,
Show me the way to God. "
The sullen door
Answer'd, " I am the Door o' the Tomb. No more.
Find thou the way. "