Classic Poem

Oh! deaf to Science and her faithful words!
I counted on those fires of prophecy
No more than on some flight of midnight birds,
That pass, unheralded, with sudden cry,—
That never travell'd under Humboldt's eye,
Nor owed themselves at Greenwich. Thirty years
Must pass ere such bright vision reappears,
And then I shall be dead or near to die;
Or, should my life bridge over that great gap,
I cannot vouch for my decrepit self,
With feeble knees, weak eyes, and velvet cap,
And all my forethought laid upon the shelf;
But some good youth, or maid, or rosy elf,
Shall set my thin face heavenward, it may hap.