Classic Poem

Honour aright the philosophic thought,
That they who, by the trouble of the brain
Or heart, for usual life are overwrought,
Hither should come to discipline their pain.
A single convent on a shoaly plain
Of waters never changing their dull face
But by the sparkles of thick--falling rain
Or lines of puny waves,--such is the place.
Strong medicine enters by the ear and eye;
That low unaltering dash against the wall
May lull the angriest dream to vacancy;
And Melancholy, finding nothing strange,
For her poor self to jar upon at all,
Frees her sad--centred thoughts, and gives them pleasant range.