Classic Poem

Our eyes are full of tears,
Of sounds of grief our ears,
And anger thrills our veins and clenchèd hands;
And vaguely we await,
As from the lips of fate,
The murmur of the wrath of many lands,
The travel of a fire which brings
The horror of an empire on its wings.

For he who knew to touch
Our ears with language such
As charmed the infant earth when time was young;
Which brought us from the night
Of darkness to the light
Wherein a nation into being sprung,
Lies colder than our thoughtful fears,
Born of the madness of these guilty years.

Cold is the agent brow,
And cold the lips ere now,
Which parted, and strange rapture and delight
Came to men's hearts and minds
Like journeyings of the winds,
Or stars which shine, or flowers which blow by night,
And Fancy, like a dream, drew by
The curtains of a cloudless destiny.

Yea, we like children stood
When in his lofty mood
He spoke of manly deeds which we might claim,
And made responses fit
While heavenly genius lit
His melancholy eyes with lambent flame,
And saw the distant aureoles,
And felt the Future thunder in our souls.

Of more he dreamed than this—
What was not nor yet is,
But in the far-off Æon is to be—
Of tyrant Wrong dismayed,
And Crime in ruins laid—
Cast under foot, nor found on earth or sea,
Of every realm, when hate shall cease,
Made glorious with a heritage of peace.

For he had caught a gleam
Beyond the sacred stream
Which steals betwixt the twin Phædriades,
Or that far mountain scene
Where flows the Hippocrene
Which struck the wingèd steed between his knees,
Beyond the gloom and awful smoke
Of Pythos' cave or Hella's whispering oak.

A later glory caught
From holier founts, and fraught
With simpler love of life and sacrifice
Of wayward, wild desire,
Which eats the flesh like fire,
And binds our souls with iron beneath the skies;
And thence he rose on flashing wings
Beyond the seeming fate and changeless things.

And in his songs was light,
And in his words was might,
To lift our hopes unto the wished-for end,
When jealousies of creed
Shall, like a loathsome weed,
Be cast away, and man with man be friend,
Nor any think the souls unpriced
That linger sadly at the feet of Christ.

And in his visions true
There came high forms anew—
Dim outlines of a nation yet to stand,
Knit to the Empire's fate,
In power and virtue great.
The lords and reapers of a virgin land—
A mighty realm where Liberty
Shall roof the northern climes from sea to sea.

And when 'gainst the emprise
Arose those enemies
Whose house is hell with chambers full of death,
Who knit their hands and weep,
And curse us in their sleep,
And drink the wine of madness with their breath,
He wrung the secret from their minds,
And cast their schemes unto the shuddering winds.

For as a spirit stood
Before the seer good,
Bright-eyed, with amber ribs and limbs of fire,
And caught him to the skies,
Whence, with reluctant eyes,
He viewed the wicked's sin and mad desire,
And saw beneath the waning day
His haunts and chambers of dark imagery.

So, not by feeble chance
Of time or circumstance,
He scanned their features and their turpitude.
But his unclouded sight
Burned through the blackest night,
And in our midst unscreened the felon brood,
And warned them from our blameless doors
Back to their hateful fields and alien shores.

For this they slew him! Now
We lift his abusèd brow
And in our anguish vainly cry to Thee
Who art our God! How long
Shall hellish crime be strong
And slavish spirits tamper with the free?
Alas, that all our days are bleak
With hate which chills, and crime which pales the cheek.

Yea, these our days are cold
With driftings manifold
Of keener sorrows deep'ning with the past;
And time, slow-swift in flight,
Still brings its ancient blight,
And shadows from increasing clouds are cast;
And hearts still ache, and heavy hands
Grow weary with their toil in many lands.

For far and near seem blent
With hollow merriment,
The groanings of the travail of the earth;
And grey-haired grace is old,
And coward hearts grow bold,
And shameless cheeks are creased with soulless mirth;
And, everywhere, who looks espies
A world's swift tears, or cold, hard-hearted eyes.

Yet as blooms melt in fruits,
Or dead flow'rs live in roots,
So time may bring the fabled after-age
When Knowledge shall be found,
Emboldened and unbound,
And Heav'n shall grow more kind as men grow sage,
And earth, no longer tempest-tost,
Shall snatch again the grace she once hath lost.