Classic Poem

Why stray'dst thou from the unseen realm of wonder,
To mock my soul, which fain would visit thee,
And roam unwearied, exploring eagerly
Thy furthest vale where sleeps the infant Thunder?
Alas, so fair art thou I fain would be
As one who knew not, and who ne'er could know
Those yearnings deep which sicken in the heart;
Those idle thoughts which have in fancy's flow
Their frenzied utt'rance and unvalued part.
Then the fair form of things would I pass by,
And view thee, glorious cloud, unheedingly.

What tortured rocks are those? What mountains rolling?
What healthy throng of men and maidens sing
By yonder lake, and all unseen? What echoing
And shouts are those? What unheard voices calling?
And, far away, by frequent brook and spring,
And leafy woods, behind yon snowy hills,
What jocund shepherds welcome in the morn
With out-poured beakers ta'en from sparkling rills
Which sing forever through the tasselled corn?
Ah me! what happy, happy swains are there!
What happy maids! what trysts! what joyance fair!

Who built those palaces and lofty towers,
With crownèd battlements and standards drooping?
And, see! what knights pass through the arched ways stooping,
In haste to join fair ladies in their bowers,
Or bevy-laughers in yon gardens grouping?
From what far city do those strange folk bring
Their gleaming sapphires and manorial gold?
And whence the uncouth people following
Their fleecy flocks escaping from the fold—
Those mounting herds whose lives so long have been
In scented meadow-lands and pastures green?

Methinks I hear the rolling murmur deep
Of cascades tumbling o'er the lofty heights,
Where often, often on the starlit nights,
The elves go dancing down each rocky steep,
And never stop until each one alights
On grassy plains low-stretching to the sea.
There late have come, from islands far away,
The long-lost Argonauts with shouts and glee.
Their moorèd craft I see within yon bay—
Large galleons, scathed by many a whistling breeze,
And barks, and amber-freighted argosies.

And yonder there is he perchance who tells
Of cloudlands lying westward from the sun,
Where forest-threading creeks and streamlets run,
By whose banks grow the fadeless asphodels,
Where every wind is faint with odours won
From summer boughs, and bees are feasting ever,
Nor dream at all of laying by their store
Against the hateful snow which cometh never—
No, not one hour, to whiten hill-sides o'er,
And droop, and quite abash the forest's pride,
And wretched make the vales and meadows wide.

Why comest thou to edge our mortal cares,
Dissembler of the tempest and the storm?
The glory of thy perishable form
Is as a momentary dream, which bares
Mysterious feet in fields and forests warm.
We know thee, that for our ancestral sin
Thy beauty shall be wasted like our toil.
Ruin shall come upon thee, darkness win
Thy stainless peaks, and poison-fires uncoil
Like asps within thy vales, yet enforced here,
Our minds invite thy fleeting fancies dear!

O golden shape! Fair, full-blown flow'r of heaven!
Gift of the dawn and far-possessing sea!
Thou foster-child of sunshine and the free
Wild air of summer, wherefore art thou given
To mock us with delights which quickly flee
Th' inviting of our souls? Art thou, O God!
Offended that thy weary children groan,
And wither in their anguish at thy rod,
And think it but small ill to walk alone
On this thine earth, wishing their cares away,
Yet finding them grow deadlier day by day?

O 'tis enough that the sharp solstice brings
Numb snow and frost to bite us to the heart,
That devilish pain and sickness smite apart
Ease and keen pleasure in the face of things.
Those gifts from heaven could we take athwart
Our little eager paths, and bear the cross
Meekly; yet they are nought to these: hope dies
And leaves us desolate, and love is loss,
And hatred burns our bones, and mercy flies
Our sundering souls, and progress funeral
Towards the love that reigns and rules o'er all.

Our pain hath no dismissal, and our joys
But speed us to our ashes. In life's charm
There lifts a cold, intolerable arm
Which smites the very infant at its ploys.
Our comfort wastes, and fair forms come to harm—
Naught lasts but sorrow, all things else decay,
And time is full of losing and forgetting,
Our pleasure is as iron and rusts away,
Our days are grief, and scarcely worth their setting.
Wherein there is repose and slumber deep,
And therefore are we thankful for our sleep.

We all are thankful for a little sleep,
For therein there is peace and easy death,
And solace for our sad, impatient breath.
Perchance therein we lose ourselves, and keep
Part of an ageless silence; yet one saith
We are but born to linger and to fear,
To feel harsh fleeting time and aimless woe.
Th' inscrutable decree which brought us here
Makes myriads wretched and shall keep them so
Till death uplifts the bars for those who wait
And yearn along the soundless gulphs of fate.

Still let us wait beneath the glorious sun,
And, be his light or strengthened or subdued.
Let light come to our eyes, for it is good
To see the small flow'rs open one by one,
And see the wild wings fleeting through the wood.
They grow and perish uncomplainingly,
And blameless live and end their blameless years.
And mayhap we are blind, and cannot see
The rainbow shining in a mist of tears;
And mayhap we are dull, and cannot feel
The touch which strengthens and the lips which heal.

What sudden haste! Why art so quickly going,
Thou fair beatitude? Ah, canst not stay
To drowse our aching sense one summer day,
And feed the light within so faintly glowing?
Alas, it heedeth not, and, far away,
The breezy standards wave o'er happier fields.
But are we fixed? O soul, is there no dawn,
No rising of some brighter sun which yields
A welcome recompense for pain? Drift on,
Thou mimic world! Thou art not all alone—
We, too, are drifting to the dim unknown.