Classic Poem

I.

All unawares the early stars turn pale;
Across their faces, like a gauzy veil,
A fleecy lustre hangs — a hint of light,
Disclosing slowly on the rim of night.
A single cloud, a wanderer in the sky,
Strayed from some tempest squadron wheeling by,
Sleeps in the lucent arc with snowy crest,
And chasms of amber flame within its breast.

II.

Hark, the awaking stir! the light winds pass
In bended lanes across the ripened grass;
The bats like blots of dusker shadow fly,
With sudden wheel and feeble, snappish cry.
Night beetles labor by on crackling wing;
The unctuous toad leaps up with velvet spring;
The owl's half human cry sounds far away,
And near, the restless farm-dog's pompous bay.
Now on each tallest tree and bare hill's brow
There clings and downward creeps, an ashen glow —
Then like a sudden burst of melody,
Preluding some majestic symphony,
The full-sphered moon arises, red and large,
Through mists that curtain the horizon's marge.

III.

Anon it whitens in the purer field
Like some antique, new-polished silver shield,
Blurred with the dints and bruises of old wars.
Awhile forget the lore of those dim scars,
And take for truth the poet-sage's dream
Of tranquil seas, whose azure bosoms gleam,
Forever mirroring unclouded skies;
Of fragrant plains where summer never dies;
Rock grottoes, roofed with pearl and emerald;
Cool, winding ways, moss-carpeted, green walled
With interwoven shrubs and clustered flowers —
Fresh, amaranthine, fairer-hued than ours:
Faint crooning groves that breathe a spicy balm,
And slumbrous vales, the haunts of tranced calm.

IV.

Alas! 'twas but the vision of a seer,
Who drew from shapes upon yon cloudy sphere
The parable of longing and unrest
Of every time and every human breast;
And though the lovely myth has winged afar
To sightless realms beyond the palest star,
The old faith lives, that somewhere there must be
Ideal beauty and serenity.