Classic Poem

The lamps have been put out, and now the night is hushed and clear,
And now do all the memories of vanished days appear
And tender legends flit about like gleams amid the blue,
Until with sad and wondrous joy the heart is kindled too.

The limpid stars look downward in the winter midnight's glow
With blissful smile, as if no death were known on Earth below.
Can you discern their silent speech? — I 'll tell you, if I may,
A tale the stars once told to me about the Milky Way

Long since, upon a star dwelt he when all the heaven were bright,
While she dwelt on another orb in distant realms of night.
The name of her was Salami, and Zulamith hight be
And each loved other with the love of spirits pure and free.

The two had dwelt before on earth and loved each other there,
But had been parted by the might of Sin and Death and Care.
Though shining wings were given them when death's repose was past,
Yet they were doomed to dwell on stars far-sundered in the Vast.

They thought of one another still in their blue homes on high,
While measureless between them lay a glowing gulf of sky.
'Twixt Salami and Zulamith unnumbered worlds were spread,
The flaming masterwork of Him whose hand hath all things made.

Then Zulamith, whose heart was nigh consumed with vain desire,
Began to build a bridge of light across the worlds of fire.
And even as did Zulamith, so she from her star's rim
Began to build from pole to pole a bridge of light to him.

So for a thousand years they built with faith that naught could stay
Until their starry bridge was done, the radiant Milky Way,
Which spans the highest vault of heaven above the Zodiac's place,
And binds together shore with shore across the sea of Space.

Then terror seized the cherubim, and God in haste they sought:
" Behold, O Lord, what Salami and Zulamith have wrought! "
But God Almighty smiled, and all was bright with beams of joy:
" What love hath wrought within my realm, I never will destroy. "

And Salami and Zulamith, their bridge completed quite,
Ran straight into each other's arms — and then an orb of light,
The fairest in the vault of heaven, appeared where they had passed;
After a thousand years of grief a heart had bloomed at last.

So all who on this darksome earth have loved with tender heart,
Whom Sin and Sorrow, Death and Night, have ever kept apart,
May build a bridge from world to world, in regions of the blest,
May come unto the loved one's side, and there at length find rest.