Classic Poem

The full moon glimmers still and white,
Where yonder shadowy clouds unfold;
The stars, like children of the Night,
Lie with their little heads of gold
On her dark lap: nor less divine,
And brighter, seems your own on mine.

My darling, with your snowy sleep
Folded around your dimpled form,
Your little breathings calm and deep,
Your mother's arms and heart are warm;
You wear as lilies in your breast
The dreams that blossom from your rest.

Ah, must your clear eyes see ere long
The mist and wreck on sea and land,
And that old haunter of all song,
The mirage hiding in the sand?
And will the dead leaves in the frost
Tell you of song and summer lost?

And shall you hear the ghastly tales
From the slow, solemn lips of Time—
Of Wrong that wins, of Right that fails,
Of trampled Want and gorgeous Crime,
Of Splendor's glare in lighted rooms
And Famine's moan in outer glooms?

Of armies in their red eclipse
That mingle on the smoking plain;
Of storms that dash our mighty ships
With silks and spices through the main;
Of what it costs to climb or fall—
Of Death's great Shadow ending all?

But, baby Marian, do I string
The dark with darker rhymes for you,
Forgetting that you came in Spring,
The child of sun and bloom and dew,
And that I kiss'd, still fresh to-day,
The rosiest bud of last year's May?

Forgive me, pretty one: I know,
Whatever sufferings onward lie,
Christ wore his crown of thorns below
To gain his crown of light on high;
And when the lamp's frail flame is gone,
Look up: the stars will still shine on.